Blue Christmas

Sometimes instead of being called an “only child” I think it should be called being an “onus child”.

Especially when your parents are divorced.

Of course one does get the “luxury” of not one, but two complete Christmases. With two STOCKINGS even, because Santa comes to both houses. Lucky, right?

Yeah. Lucky.

Christmas day started at mom’s where it’s just the two of us. We played “A Christmas Story”, drank coffee, opened stockings, ate a good breakfast, then divvied up the presents and took turns opening them.

I try to spoil my mom if I can. You see, she was the one left by my dad back in 1988. The divorce, while relatively quick and amicable, was not painless. Especially since my father took up almost immediately with the woman who would eventually become my stepmother.

The insult and injury to mom continued when my father and stepmother bought land in the ritziest part of my hometown where they subsequently built a modest mansion. All the while my mother has remained single, works two jobs, and still lives in the same small house I grew up in.

She’s earned the spoiling, I think.

This year she was floored by the laptop computer I got her. She didn’t want to accept it at first because I had spent too much on her. And then she teared up a little. All of which made my heart sing to watch.

We played around setting up the computer and then started our Christmas lunch prep. We are having a third for lunch today; mom invited a woman she works with to join us. This woman is relatively new to the area and couldn’t get home for the holidays, so mom opened up her home.

Mom even had a stocking for the woman to open, ’cause mom is cool like that.

But all too soon it was time to leave moms. She sighed when she hugged me, sad to have to share me. And sad to spend the last bit of her holiday vacation alone.

Originally I was going to spend the entire day with mother, but that changed after I called to wish my father a merry Christmas. I could hear the depression in his voice, so I knew I had to go visit.

Now generally it isn’t bad going to dads. There are usually 4 of us (stepmom and stepbro included) and we play cards and drink beer. Or watch movies on the big tv. After we do stockings and small presents and stuff, of course. We fart from too much garlicy chex mix and laugh and generally have a grand time.

Except not this year.

You see, this year for Christmas my stepmother has asked for a divorce.

Yes, twenty years after his first marriage dissolved, the second is coming to an end. And just in time for the holidays.

And to top it off, he had to have oral surgery this week so he is in pain and can’t really eat anything.

Merry Christmas.

When I arrived at dads, I gave him his bomber jacket (which was unceremoniously tossed on the coat tree), and then we spent the evening watching basketball and the movie “Superbad”. Just the two of us.

In a way I guess I see this as some sort of karmic retribution for my father. He was never the easiest man to live with- and that’s being rather generous on my part.

He was rough on me as a kid and he certainly didn’t make life a bed of roses for mom. He was difficult and opinionated and stubborn, prone to tempers, and generally an angry man. And I always felt he took his good fortune (as well as those around him) for granted.

But now here he is at age 66 and all alone in a big, empty house. And I know he’s been weighing his life these past few weeks, and he has found it wanting.

When I look into my father’s eyes now, I see an incredible well of sadness. His remaining days which he had so carefully mapped out now are in chaos. He is lost and scrambling, and that makes my heart hurt.

Yet I also find myself rather terrified. I am a perfect combination of my two parents and I can see many qualities in each that I possess.

My mother has managed to amass many friends, and yet seems resigned to the fact she will never find one special person to share her life with. And my father manages to drive away all those who decide to care for him.

When I look at my parents, what scares me the most is not that I see my future– it’s that I see my present.

Both my parents may have ended up lonely, but I seem to have started off that way.

By the time my parents were my age, they had already been married for nineteen years. Nearly half their life had been spent in the company of another.

My longest relationship to date lasted less than a year and a half.

I am a perfect combination of my parents, and I am following in their footsteps– only faster. And without any relationships to slow my progress.

And worst of all, I am all alone in trying to figure out how to care for and be there for my parents. And it is only going to get worse.

Maybe Santa can bring me a dumb, straight, older brother for Christmas next year. Preferably one who has a wife and kids.

I’m tired of being an onus child.