Sue's Solutions: When Christmas Colors Fade: Finding Joy in Moments...

Sue's Solutions: When Christmas Colors Fade: Finding Joy in Moments...: Not every Christmas is red and cozy. The vividness of the golds and greens can fade quickly to sienna when the moments of your life take an ...

When Christmas Colors Fade: Finding Joy in Moments

Not every Christmas is red and cozy. The vividness of the golds and greens can fade quickly to sienna when the moments of your life take an unexpected turn. Even the most stoic of believers in seasonal joy may see only grey in picture-perfect scenes when their life has been turned around.

We might ask ourselves, “What can we do to re-ignite the joy into the life of someone who has experienced sadness, grief or unexpected trauma during the holiday season?” The only answer to that question may be truly beyond our grasp. Life changing events are rarely cured quickly or managed with a few exchanges of yuletide spirit.

While some of us sit snugly in front of a warm glowing fireplace with rich foamy cups of hot cocoa, others may be pacing the halls of an Emergency Room, searching a cold empty parking lot for a stray dollar bill, or enduring a heart-wrenching farewell to a loved one. While our world is bright and shiny, another’s world may be fading. 

The hard truth is we really don’t know what is going on in the lives of all the millions of faces we see flashing by us in our world. Reality is much more than a popular show on a television or a boastful social media post. Reality is what the humans behind the millions of faces we see are dealing with every day.

Stores and kiosks are overflowing with the richest of glowing gifts, sure to light up the day of any well thought of recipient. But, what if the only gift on that recipient’s list is a visit from a loved one, a positive result from a medical test, or an answer to a prayer?

What do we tell the lost soul searching for answers he no longer believes will come? Or the parents who have just said goodbye to the greatest gift God can bestow on them? How do we fix the unfixable?

Unfortunately, the answer sometimes is that there is no answer. Life is full of the unknown. So many things are out of our control. Heartbreak happens here, while elation overflows there. By the sheer nature of our instincts, we persevere through the dense fog and cracked interiors. Holiday colors blend, change and twist in the chilly December air. We find ourselves searching for the happiness and peace we can still find in simple moments.

We feel sun shine through a closed window or see it on the glistening snow. A light in a distant window reminds us of a long ago home. We hear something funny and begin to laugh. Treasured photos are found in the box of ornaments. A calming hand is placed on our shoulder. The scratchy PA system plays a favorite holiday melody. Familiar voices call out our name. Jewelry once lost glimmers from beside the Christmas tree. A face we greatly miss appears at our door.

Life is hard. It is also sweet.

So, paint your holidays with a broad brush. Reach out. Be generous in spirit and show simple human kindness. Be understanding of all life’s moments. Like the colors on a Christmas star, they will change with reflection.

Sue Cryer  
www.myscww.org

(Dedicated to my loved ones who are experiencing losses this holiday season.)

New Year, Clean Slate

A Clean Slate                                      By Sue Cryer                                 January, 2016

The New Year.

All is shiny and new, at least according to the calendar hanging on the wall or popping up on our phones. Sure, appointments are scheduled and vacations planned. Uncle Stew’s 80^th birthday is February 20^th and Cousin Gwen is visiting in June. What we don’t have scheduled is the unexpected. We have been given a clean slate to start the year where that is concerned.

In fact, the new calendar is almost pristine in its uneventfulness. Page after page of white squares blur before our eyes as we anticipate a better year, a healthy year, a new year.

As we rip the old calendar off the wall, the pages flutter in our faces. Reminders of days we had no idea would be spent in remorse, fear, trepidation and even grief. The job we lost, the storm we never saw coming, an illness that had yet been undetected, the loss of someone dear to us. The questions linger in our minds. How did we get through that? Why did it happen? What should we have done differently?

Of course, there was elation too. Maybe there was unexpected joy in the news of a marriage or a new baby. Perhaps there was a new love in our lives, the settling of a financial hardship, or the return of someone we had greatly missed. All good reasons for elation. Yet, each event still causes nervous trepidation as the possible results trigger the fear of more changes in our lives.

For goodness sake, why can’t we just be happy? Stop worrying about what tomorrow or next week, month or year will bring? Well, we are human after all. Given a good size brain, free will and all that. We can never just be satisfied.

As a species, we crave more. We seek more. Not always in the wisest way. Just watch the news, open your newspaper, google, or peruse the posts on social media. Politicians posturing, extremists emitting, insensitive judging, privileged coveting, entitlement rising, terrorists plotting, and guns being drawn.

All because we are not satisfied. We need things. We want things. These things involve being bigger, better, stronger, thinner, healthier, and even happier.

Ah, some of those are positive things. We are human. We have free will. Keep watching, googling and reading. Families grow, artists create, good will spreads, cures are discovered, minds heal, nature rebounds, a view is breathtaking and sins are absolved.

So, adjustment can be beneficial. The new and unexpected may set us free from the worries of yesterday.

Is this true? Yes. I believe it can be.

I am sticking with that answer, because that is what my human heart is telling my human brain. Be strong. Be positive. Be flexible.

Most of all, live each day like it is a clean slate!