The Last Christmas

It’s Christmas eve and in a few hours we’ll be having our annual family Christmas party. It’s an Event. Every year. We have a website set up for it. We have a very involved Kris Kringle system. It’s fun. It’s quirky. I really love it.

I’m making Flemish stew for the dinner component of the evening. It’s going to taste amazing. Even if I do say so myself.

But this year, there’s a cloud hanging over us and I don’t really know what to do about it.

My cousin is dying. At this rate she will pass as early as today or as late as New Years, but probably closer to Boxing Day. The doctor has put her into a deep sleep from which she will live out the last days of her life without pain.

I visited my cousin when I went to the Netherlands just a couple of months ago. I stayed with her and her husband. So I kinda got to say goodbye, but not really. By then she was already breathing out of an oxygen tank, but she did manage to get dressed up for her thirtieth birthday party, which I am so happy I was able to attend.

Now, before I continue, I would like to say that I won’t pretend that her death will consume my entire existence or anything that dramatic. There’s nothing I hate more than a disingenuous reaction to a death.

My father’s death shook me to the core and has made me, in some ways, an irreparably damaged person. I am convinced that approximately seven years worth of my innocence died with my father that day. So I do realise that whatever I’m feeling now is not on that level.

But I am feeling a hell of a lot more than I would expect to feel about someone who I’ve only had about five or six occasions of face-to-face contact. Yes, I have kept more in contact with her over the years than with my other overseas cousins, but I still don’t really know her. And she probably knows me even less.

This holiday season has been terrible. For the part of the year that contains my big three of festivities (My birthday, Christmas and New Years), I’ve felt horrible. I mean, I’ve still gone out with my friends to have fun, but it just hasn’t been that fun.

Maybe I would feel guilty if I had fun. I dunno. I feel strange. I feel confused. Right now, for example, I can’t sleep. It’s 5:46 am and I haven’t slept yet! I feel like I need to distract myself. That's probably why I'm writing this.

To keep this semi-concise though, I’d now like to write, in point form, a few thoughts, anecdotes and things like that, in no particular order.

1. I had a conversation with my mum about this a few days ago. And she said something that hadn’t occurred to me before – that for my cousin’s family, Christmas will be dead forever. Every one of them from this year forth will remind them of her death. That kind of stuff sticks with you. And that’s horrible.

2. Her story is eerily similar to the Belinda Emmett story. Both had cancers for a similar number of years and both are about the same age. Both their cancers started with breast cancer and then spread to the rest of the body. Both had gotten married quite recently to men who were quite well aware of what they were getting themselves into.

I was at this lunch not long after Belinda Emmett’s death and a work friend of mine made a joke about Rove being single again but that he would have ‘ghost issues’. I normally quite like this person, but for that moment, I genuinely hated her for saying something like that.

3. A few doctors and a psychic have said that she should have died long ago. Like a couple of years ago. But that she’s stayed alive this long through sheer strength of will.

4. OK, I’ll say this: She’s my favourite cousin. Always have been. With all due respect to my other cousins, this is absolutely true. Ever since I was old enough to actually converse with her, she’s been my favourite. I’m not sure why. But I’m sure this is why her death is affecting me like this. I feel a special bond to her.

5. OK, the next confession: It’s probably all superficial. Thing is, she’s cool. She’s pretty. Hell, I’d say she’s hot and we all know it! She has a certain radiance when she walks into a room. She’s always so cheerful and happy and positive, even when she was sick. I'm not saying she was a perfect angel, but she's just one of those people who are instantly likeable. I want to be related to someone like that! I’m proud to be related to someone like that!

The first time I was in Holland, a few years ago, we were having a conversation about relationships and whatnot, and she said ‘sometimes I feel like all I have to do is smile and guys all want to talk to me.’ And she said that as a matter of fact – lamenting it even; with all honesty, without a hint of arrogance and with a surety that I wouldn’t judge her as being arrogant (which I didn’t). And I love her for that.

6. On my last trip a couple of months ago, I was out drinking with her husband and his basketball friends. It was fun. Undeniably. But when I got back to their home and got into bed, all of a sudden, I started crying. Bawling, more like it. I dunno. Maybe it was the 25 or so beers we had that made me emotional, but suddenly I just felt the entire weight of knowing that this will be the last time I ever see her again. I felt so sad for her. I felt so sad for her husband. I felt so sad for her family. I felt so sad for myself.

7. As I was crying my eyes dry, I started thinking of what I could do. She had planned for a long time now to come again to Sydney with her husband in the new year, but as much as we all talked about it like it was happening, we all knew in the back of our minds that it’s never going to happen. So I thought of doing some grand gesture to keep her spirits up, but the only thing I could think of was to give her some sort of token and make her promise to give it back to me in Sydney. But I had no idea how she’d react to that. Whether it be positive, depression or anger. It was corny so I didn’t do it. I decided not to be so dramatic.

When I got home, I ended up writing a song about her (it’s about a fictional dream I have of her actually making it to Sydney) and I had some plan to record it and send it to her but I just haven’t had the time and she now will never get to listen to it. Which in the end is probably a good thing, seeing as though, let’s face it, any song written with my rudimentary guitar and singing skills is bound to be crap.

But I feel like I need to do something.

__________

I am sure there is a lot more to say but I probably don’t need to say them right now.

This is the worst birthday and Christmas in my recent memory. Probably the worst since my first one without my father, but enough has been said about that. And I know that it sounds selfish that I am talking about myself at this time. But as a man of faith and as one who has gone through a death in the family before, I understand that death is ironically infinitely more painful for the survivors. I must believe that her deep sleep will relieve her of the pain and that when she passes she will go to a better place. It's the rest of them – her husband and her friends and her family – that will take the brunt of the pain. And then people like me just feel the aftershocks.

To Oom Gie, Tante Tho, Cynthia and Johan, I’m really sorry for the loss that you’re about to face. I hope you all can get through this. We’re all here thinking of you and praying for you.

To Patrick, I thank you for loving her and sticking by her and adding some brightness to her life in her last years.

She’s my cousin.

She’s blood.

But more than that, I count her as a friend.

Fiona, I bid you farewell.

I love you.

And may you rest in peace.