Love Letters at Christmas

A little over a year ago, I was going through Mom’s belongings.  In a nondescript white box with a stretch band around it, I was shocked to find the presence of hundreds of handwritten love letters from my mom to my dad and from my dad to my mom.  Knowing my parents, I believe that they each kept these letters, not because they needed paper to remind them of their love, but because keeping the letters was a tangible way for them to communicate that the small moments of each other’s lives, their thoughts, and their dreams mattered.  The letters communicated the priority of their relationship and love.  

Similarly, I found a stack of all the Christmas letters Mom wrote from the early 1970s until her death.  I believe she kept them for a similar reason:  because she truly felt her Christmas letters were love letters to friends who were like family.  

Honestly, the entire Christmas story is really a love letter of sorts—of God realizing that we people had confused His true identity with too much religiosity and too many rules.  Imagine His horror to see that some believed that God only loved people who looked like them, talked like them, and lived like them.  Many felt like they were completely left out of God’s love.  The Christmas story is based on God sending His Son to communicate to these people who felt unlovable how much He loved them.  How do I know?  Because Jesus primarily spent all his life with the poor, the ignored, the women and children, and societal outcasts, convincing them that they were not too unimportant for God to love them.

If Christmas is all about love letters to those who matter to us, then, Christmas Letter 2021 is a love letter to you.  It is a love letter to my family--and to my friends who are like family:

• To my son, Andy:  How you have turned your life around in the past year—from working full-time, to beginning your MBA at Baylor, to your new adventure in January moving to Reno, Nevada, for an internship as program manager for new designs for Tesla! Since you are fairly independent already, I know you will accomplish great things and fly high (as your grandpa would say). 
• To my son, Jonathan:  I am so proud of you for working so hard as a full-time environmental science major at Baylor and a student worker.  I so admire your ability to be 100% in the moment, living life to the fullest.  Despite any distance, you are never away from my thoughts.
• To my husband, Anthony:  How you have taken your skills and talents and created a real estate business model that attracts clients across the country amazes me each day.  You live big and love big, and you never fail to be there for all of us, whether it is a son who needs a car, a client who needs a house, or a wife who needs constancy in the midst of it all. 
• To my friends who are like family (that is ALL OF YOU):  Thank you for being in my life.  Thank you to so many of you for your prayers, thoughts, or check-ins with me in the past year.  Losing my mom last year, joined together with COVID online teaching, and then discovering I have my own breast tumor (thankfully, benign), you have kept me going on this roller coaster of life, holding on to me when I was flying out of the seat. 

For all of us at Christmas, especially all of us who feel unloved, ignored, unseen, unheard, unappreciated, too much, or not enough, certain times of the year can be rough.  However, at Christmas, God’s message in His love letter meant just for you is this:  I love you.  Wholly.  Unconditionally.  Just as you are.

For all of you living a Christmas that is not quite as you imagined it: perhaps with sick parents, a family member who is no longer there, unruly kids, alienated children, a home with a tiny Charlie Brown tree with just a couple presents beneath, this Christmas letter is hopefully my small way of letting you know you matter.  You have made an impact on my life.  This is my love letter to you.

All of us occasionally need a “love letter” created just for us.   May this year be one filled with moments where you are assured of love.

 

 

My Stalkers

 "Stalked" by Ruzuuki

I cannot recall her face.  Or her voice.

However, her smile is inscribed in my memory.

I will call her D.  I have purposely forgotten all but her smile because of the numerous years of hell she put my family through while I was finishing high school and attending college.

D was a young lady who attended the same high school I did.  She had Mom as her English teacher, and she knew Dad as the principal of her junior high school (and ultimately of her high school).  She and Kelly were classmates. 

Raised in an abusive home, D decided my parents should be her parents, and in this reasoning, my sister and I did not deserve them.  She began calling our house.  Hundreds of times each day for years—no exaggeration at all.  

Before the existence of call blocking or caller ID, our options were non-existent.  We had to have a phone.  The DA told us to write down the times of each of her calls.  We had notebooks full of records.

She called at 6 a.m.  She called at 1 a.m.  She called at all hours in between.  She called while we were on vacation in North Carolina (since she knew we had a tiny home there).  She tracked me down through directory assistance and called me in my college apartment.  She called my sister in hers.  She drove by our house dozens of times each day.  She followed us home from church.  She waited for us in mall parking lots, in grocery stores, by our mailbox.  She tried to run my sister over. 

She did all of this with a smile on her face and a friendly wave to make sure we saw her.

All our friends knew who she was, and we warned repeatedly that if something happened to one or all of us, they would know who was likely behind it.

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Trying to explain the nightmare of a stalker is really impossible.  There is no way to explain the constant feeling of helplessness.  The fear.  The unknown.

Years have passed since D has been in my life—even though she did call the night Dad died, and my sister and I kept anticipating a call from her when Mom died.  Perhaps she has finally moved on.

Despite the fact that D is not calling all the time, I now have another type of stalker in my life.

Just like D, my current stalker, who I will call A, follows me many hours of the day.  However, A is especially effective in the attack in the middle of the night.

A is relentless.  Distance does not matter.  Essential oils and relaxation techniques do not make her go away.  My willpower to get away from her is unequaled.  However, she does not give up.  She believes she knows best by pelting me with What If’s so the “little girl” in me does not get surprised by any more than possible. 

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A, otherwise referred to by others as Anxiety, has raised her ugly head in my life several times since my divorce.  Just when I think she has disappeared, life happens, and here she is again.

Following me.

Waving at me. 

The past few months A has been a shadow of mine.  This summer I was diagnosed as someone at high risk for cancer, and within weeks of this diagnosis, after many diagnostic tests and a biopsy, A has been a stalker in my life.    The anniversary of my mother’s death from cancer complications coinciding with all this has not helped.

I want A gone.  Just as badly as I wanted D gone many years ago.

In high school, Kelly and I refused to open the door because we were convinced D would once again be at our front door and might do something to us. 

Just as with D, with my new stalker A, I have been anxious about what is on the other side of the door.  What awaits me?  Am I prepared?  

I find that I am just not ready to open that door sometimes.

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What I realize now about my two stalkers is the difference in how I feel about my role.

My family never blamed ourselves for D’s actions.  We did nothing to deserve the dogged attention she paid to us.  We did all we could to discourage her.  We did the best we knew how to do at the time to keep moving forward without her attached.

Why is it so hard, then, for me not to blame myself for A’s stalking?

Perhaps the blame is a result of the years of clichés of “Let Go, and Let God” and “Let Jesus take the Wheel” and “The Bible repeats ‘Do not fear’ 365 times, once for each day of the year.”  As I was repeatedly told, people who are depressed or anxious do not trust God enough.  This guilt then only makes sure that A comes to visit more often.

Perhaps blame is the result of men like a doctor yesterday who said all the wrong things to a female who was anxious, who made me feel like the hysterical women of the 1800s and early 1900s.

Perhaps a sense of self-blame is the traditional consequence of my overzealous, perfectionist self.  However, I can no more control my perfectionism and drive than I can A.

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Instead, I want to believe that, just as with D, my new stalker A is here just a brief season of my life.

Perhaps, A will make me recognize the value of the current moment. 

Perhaps, A will remind me of the friends and family who have supported me daily for months---and years. 

Perhaps, just as with D, A will help me realize something about the hurt in others. 

Perhaps I should tack this to the outside of my metaphorical door:

Dear Stalker,

“I will transform you into something useful and productive.  I will not bow down to you.” (Jaeda DeWalt)

Kim