Alison Hodgson

Expert on the etiquette of perilous times.

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Archives for December 2012

How To Teach Children To Mourn – Part Three

December 28, 2012 by Alison Hodgson 5 Comments

Jack eager to get to the Christmas tree farm, 2012

Part One is HERE.
Part Two is HERE.

If you asked, “Alison, what did you learn from the fire?” I would definitely tell you, “Hire a Public Adjuster.”  This is a person or company distinct from an insurance or claims adjuster—the party who will negotiate on behalf of your insurance company. The Public Adjuster negotiates on yours.

This post isn’t about insurance, so I’m going to leave it at that. But repeat this three times, to seal it in your memory.

Public Adjuster
Public Adjuster
Public Adjuster

Should your house ever burn down (God forbid!) and you forget, contact me.

“Alison, I don’t need insurance tips—(you so do!)—I’m wondering what you learned, you know, spiritually.”

Fortunately so few people go around asking others what they have learned, because I would be hard pressed to tell you what the fire taught me. Looking back, it just seemed like a long march. I did learn a ton about how to support and care for people in crisis. And yes, I learned spiritual things  too—mostly about hope—but I still find it hard to neatly explain it.

But if you asked me, “What about that time your living room remodel went off the rails and you had to wait until right before Christmas to get your tree and everything fell apart; what did you learn? I would be able to tell you immediately:

“Parents need to teach their children to mourn.”

That’s it in a nutshell, but of course I want to tell you the whole story.

By the time the living room was finished and we were finally ready to get a tree it was five days before Christmas. The thing is we were going away that year. My mom’s side of the family was spending Christmas at a resort in Indiana and we were leaving Wednesday, the 23rd. It seemed ridiculous to get a tree only to have it less than three days.

Paul and I conferred. He was all for renegotiating with the kids. At first I was all for it too. I just wanted to get everything cleaned up and put away. The thought of pulling out all the Christmas things to turn right around and take them all down again was exhausting but something gave me pause.

Christopher, Lydia and Eden were 14, 12 and not quite 7 years old and all of them were eagerly awaiting this. How long would that last?  Sure we could make them come on this family outing as long as they were under our roof, but that’s no fun. It felt important to do this, knowing it could be our last. I was thinking of the kids growing up and individuating.

I have no idea this will be our last Christmas decorating the tree with ornaments the children had been given since their births, with ornaments I had collected since I was a child. This is our last Christmas in this house and before the fire. But I don’t know that, I just have this compulsion we should pony up and get the tree regardless of how impractical it seems. Paul sees my point and agrees.

Would the farm even be open still? I called and listened to the recording of their hours. I looked on their website too. Both said they were open on Sundays and there was no mention of when they closed for the season.  We decided to go right after church and invited my mom to come along.

The day was cold, but beautiful. We’d had a lot of snow. Everyone was happy and eager. This would be Jack’s third visit to the farm and he couldn’t wait. I don’t know how he knew where we were going but he seemed to and parked himself between the front seats just like in the picture above.

We turned off the exit and hit the first fork in the road. There were signs for several farms and stands, but the sign for our farm was missing. This  brought my first sense of foreboding but I kept quiet. Turning onto the road I also noticed the lack the traffic, but it was the chain across the first entrance which confirmed my fears.

The kids all reacted immediately, gasping and crying out. Paul pulled into the second entrance and stopped. We looked at each other.

“What do you want to do?” He asked.

“There’s another farm, Jane and Doug go to just up the road,” I said, “Kids, let’s try another place,” I called to the back of the van, “Okay?”

“Those mean, mean people!” Eden shouted. I pictured the kindly older couple who ran the farm with the help of their children and grandchildren.

“Eden!” I said, “You know they’re nice people. It wasn’t clear they were closed, but it is less than a week before Christmas. It’s understandable.”

She crossed her little arms and stared at me, sullen and intractable.

“Does this mean we aren’t going to get a tree?” Christopher asked from the very back.

“We’re going to get one,” I said, “We just need to figure out another place. Miss Jane goes to a farm right near here. Let’s try that.”

Paul turned around and pulled out onto the road, back the way we came.

Jack threw back his head and howled.

To Be Continued….

Filed Under: Christmas, mourning, the fire

How To Teach Children To Mourn – Part Two

December 26, 2012 by Alison Hodgson Leave a Comment

Jack’s first trip to the farm, Christmas 2007

Our former home was what I called a “Sprucer Upper” but I was probably fooling myself. We started with an entire kitchen remodel, taking it down to the studs and then, in the six years we owned the house, we continued room by room installing new floors, retexturing ceilings, adding windows and painting, from the day we took possession until the day it burned. Outside of painting, and Paul installing a couple of floors, we hired all the work.

Three years ago we set our sights on the living room. Our plan was to replace the ancient berber carpet with bamboo; remove the faux beams which lowered our already low ceiling and cast shadows; and give everything a fresh coat of paint.

We did all that, as well as installed an entirely new ceiling and replaced, the hideous and ancient inset lights. A miscommunication with the electrician caused a huge delay. And then the drywall guy got sick so a project which was scheduled to wrap up before Thanksgiving wasn’t completed until less than a week before Christmas.

I mentioned here how important getting a Christmas Tree is in our family. Our tradition is to go the day after Thanksgiving or occasionally the day after that. One year we needed to wait a week and none of us liked it a bit.

Three years ago, the week before Thanksgiving, I told the kids, “We aren’t going to be able to get the tree the day after Thanksgiving this year,” and explained why. No one was thrilled, but everyone resigned themselves to it.

In the meantime we were living in chaos. The contents of our living room were stacked in our dining room, and “stacked” is a euphemism. I had already bought new furniture and hadn’t gotten rid of the old, so we had two sofas, seven chairs, three side tables, various books and paintings from the living room, jammed in with the rightful contents of the dining room: a table, five chairs, a large antique cabinet/armoire and a wide bookcase more than full of books.

It was a mess.

And it was Christmas. My sister-in-law offered to lend us her tabletop tree, but I laughed; we didn’t even have the top of a table free. Christmas, the decorations at least, would have to wait.

This began me thinking about how we live in the mess. In this case it was literal but it made me consider the figurative ones too. We had to set aside what had defined our Christmas traditions and in some ways we were simply enduring, waiting for the time to pass when our life would be back to normal.

What I wondered was how to celebrate the time despite or in the midst of the mess. Life is to be more than simply endured, but I didn’t know how exactly between actual and spiritual worlds. Paul and I had been through many hard times: his cancer as a boy, the untimely deaths of both of our fathers, my struggle with depression, Christopher’s various diagnoses and surgeries and other trials. But three years ago we were stable in every sense.  So our dining room was a hellhole, life itself was good. Of course we still had stresses and concerns but they weren’t overwhelming.

Something I was thinking about too was the idea of God’s presence. One of the names of God is Emmanuel which means, “God with us.” I have been a follower of Christ since I was a child and there are aspects of the faith I have known since—at least intellectually. As I get older I have begun to know them truly and deeply. I had known the name Emmanuel as long as I could remember, but I had been newly struck by what it meant to have God with me always and I wondered about enduring vs. thriving, even celebrating in the mess of life, because of this.

I wish I had written about it then, because so soon I would be able to apply this rumination. Six months later our house will burn, we will lose all our possessions and be plunged into our most stressful time—maybe our biggest mess—yet.

To Be Continued….

Filed Under: Uncategorized

How To Teach Children To Mourn – Part One

December 21, 2012 by Alison Hodgson Leave a Comment

Eden, Ren, Oliver, Jack and Christopher—Christmas 2012

 I want to let you in on a little secret: getting a Christmas tree is one of those things which works in our family. And by works I mean you could hire a film crew to follow us around and they would record wonderful images of fun, loving-kindness and delight of the sort which would make most of you gnash your teeth in envy and despair. Every.single.year.

In family life there are so many things we mythologize and sentimentalize and too often we parents feel depressed—even ashamed—because the experiences we try to create for our kids rarely measure up to our expectations.

And that’s just normal life, at Christmas it’s all ratcheted up about a thousand notches. Just the commercials are enough to do me in: the immaculate houses, the beautiful soft lights, the sweet and freshly bathed children creeping down stairs, with nary a dustball or dog hair in sight.  I think it’s officially a red flag when you’re fantasizing about moving into a commercial.

But my family has found our little sweet spot in the midst of it all. Long ago, when the big kids were little, I suggested we visit a local Christmas tree farm and cut down our tree. I was nervous because what I was setting us up for was an experience. Up until then our acquisition of a tree had been completely utilitarian. I almost always picked up a tree at a lot, some times with Paul and the kids but mainly I did it alone.

In my family of origin, the tree getting was always an ordeal and we took the line the end justified the means. I refer to my mother as “Martha Stewart’s one-armed sister” because she truly has only one arm—but that’s another story—like Martha she makes everything astonishingly beautiful and can be a bit of a task master. Unlike Martha with her staff of minions, my mother was working at a deficit: we were her minions. Every year, we set out and she would take hours, rejecting tree after tree, until we were all sick to death of it and her. Finally she would find one which met with her approval and we’d haul it home and then the real nightmare began.

Every single year the lights had to be found and then a good hour was spent untangling them. I was a child and thought, “It shouldn’t be this hard!” I have run my own household on a wing and a prayer, but the order of my Christmas boxes would make a Nazi take notes. I don’t even want to tell you about putting the lights on the tree because you can’t handle the truth. Just know, it (the process) was not a pretty sight, but the tree was always gorgeous when our travails were finally over.

With Paul’s family of origin, everything was much more practical. If aesthetics were a consideration at all, it was minor. They bought their tree from a lot and at a certain point when he was still at home, they stopped getting a tree and it wasn’t really missed.

Given our heritages, specific to Christmas trees, and pretty much across the board, I don’t know how I had any hope we could do any better, but I did.  So one snowy morning we bundled up Christopher and Lydia and headed out.

It was a Christmas dream of a farm. There was a cute little cottage decorated with garland where you paid. Christmas carols were playing at just the right volume. Around the corner there was hot chocolate and peppermint candies, the good, soft kind and across the way a fire with marshmallows to roast. Set on a hilly spot, there was a natural place for the kids to sled. Several farms dogs acted as greeters, including an enormous St. Bernard with whom we were all instantly smitten.

We piled into the back of a big truck and bumped along to the area where the particular variety I favored grew. It had snowed the day before and all the trees were covered. It was so beautiful. Just walking amongst them was a delight, but it was cold. I glanced about nervously trying to quickly find a tree but I didn’t see any tall enough, but not too tall, with pleasingly full shapes, but not stocky. I began to worry because I wanted to be cheerful and speedy…and happy.

“How about this one?” I suggested and Paul reached his hand up to the top. He’s 6’6″ so his fingertips stretch to about eight feet. It was just under, which with a star would be just right.

I wasn’t delighted but I didn’t want to be so picky. I wanted to be easy to please and how do you begin to be that other than to accept things as they are?

“Are you sure?” Paul asked, “Do you want to look some more?”

“Do you mind?”

He didn’t and the kids were happy to be out in the sunshine and the snow. In just a few minutes more we found a tree which was just right, or at least right enough. Paul cut it down, with Christopher and Lydia on their bellies watching and he dragged it to one of the stops with their help.

As we waited for the truck to pick us up, I don’t know who proposed a snowball fight but both kids joined Paul and ganged up on me. Lydia mainly hopped around in excitement and Christopher was not yet the crack shot he is today. Paul pelted me with snowballs, but marshalled his strength so they didn’t hurt. I maybe threw one.  I have no aim and I couldn’t stop laughing. Finally I had to lie down in the snow.

While Paul paid and tied the tree on the car, I helped the kids roast one more marshmallow and find each of the dogs to say goodbye. Paul met us and we walked back to the car together. The kids clambered in but I touched Paul’s arm.

“We need to savor this.”

He paused.

I looked him in the eye, “We have just lived a dream. All across America families are headed out with the hope of having an experience, even half as lovely as we’ve just had. This was perfect; we need to acknowledge it and be grateful.”

Every year we came back, adding Eden to our number and then Jack. There wasn’t always the perfecet snow like the first year. Some years it was mild and muddy and some it was bitter cold. Some years we went first thing in the morning, and some we were racing the sunset. But no matter what, every year, it was good.

Until one year we couldn’t come and it was very, very bad.

To be continued…

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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