church choir

A Childless Holiday Can Be Anything You Want it to Be

Sue Fagalde Lick Central oregon coast, childless at Christmas, Childless holidays, foster children , , , , , , , ,

There was a moment Christmas Eve when I looked out from my seat in the choir at the beautiful families in church and wanted to weep. I don’t have that. I will never have that. I will never be the mom surrounded by children and grandchildren with her handsome husband by her side.

But I was not alone. I was with our eight-person choir, who feel like family, and I had songs to sing and play, with solos to perform. I had to pull it together, even if I was just going through the motions. I admit that I visited the liquor cabinet after Mass and toasted my late husband with a bit of Cointreau, a French liqueur he left behind.

Christmas day dawned gray and rainy, but I felt better. I sat beside my Christmas tree and opened the presents I had not already opened the day before—who’s to tell me when to open my gifts?

The ones from family felt as if they didn’t really know me, but I had another Mass to play music for, so I didn’t dwell on it. I made myself a breakfast of fresh strawberries, a homemade muffin, and tea and dressed for Christmas Day Mass. Instead of Christmas Eve’s long skirt that was constantly in my way, I wore black slacks, a green shirt, and a sparkly vest—I was comfortable and festive.

I look back on my Christmas day in brightly colored mental snapshots and feel blessed.

At church, I played the piano. We sang carols and solos before Mass, and my song went as well as it possibly could. The church sparkled with red flowers and people in their holiday clothes. I love our small white church by the sea and all the people in it.

After Mass, I dashed home for lunch—a meat loaf sandwich, my favorite. I played a CD of Handel’s “Messiah” while making my salad for dinner with friends. I talked for a long time on the phone with my best friend in California, then drove 45 minutes up the coast to pick up Orpha, a friend, from her senior residence. Childless and widowed like me, she is still gorgeous in her 80s, and fun. We laughed and talked until we arrived at our friends’ house. There, it was a riot of gift wrappings, food, cookies, wine, and yes, kids, two teens and a little one. After their biological kids grew up, our hosts became foster parents. They specialize in teens with gender identity issues.

Most years, I spend at least one of the holidays there, and it always feels like home. It feels like family—no, it feels better than family because all of the people there have been chosen. My friends have collected me and Orpha, the two men who share a house across the street, their own children, their foster children, and their dogs and cats. It’s loud, crazy and wonderful, and I don’t feel a lack of anything.

Shortly after darkness fell, we oldies headed home. I traded my church/party clothes for soft PJs and settled in to watch the new Meg Ryan movie on Amazon Prime.

The doorbell rang. I paused the movie. My young neighbors and their friends sang “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in perfect harmony, just for me. They all hugged me, and they gave me cookies, a giant candy cane, and a big beautiful photo taken in the location of my novel Up Beaver Creek. So sweet.

My brother’s family, whom I miss a lot, was having a more traditional Christmas with the kids and grandkids. My best friend was at her adult daughter’s home, but they weren’t getting along and she had a stomachache. Not all family holidays are joyful. If I were with family, I might have felt the lack of my own children and my late husband more deeply. It comes and goes. I have losses to grieve, but at the same time I have so much freedom and so much love in my life.

There is life beyond childlessness. It can be beautiful. You do need to reach out to other people and let them reach out to you. If you close the door and wallow in your loneliness, well, you will be lonely.

How did your holiday go? I’d love to hear the good, bad and ugly. Did you feel sad about not having children or relieved? Did you do anything a standard family might not have done? One couple I know went to Cabo. Why not?

A few days ago, when I was feeling creative, I wrote a new Christmas song. Click here if you’d like to hear it. Let me know if the link doesn’t work.

Next weekend is the New Year’s holiday. What will you do differently next year?

Thank you all for being here. I treasure your comments.

Photo by Nick Collins on Pexels.com

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Childless dog-mom takes pooch to church

Sue Fagalde Lick Annie the dog, childless and single, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , ,

IMG_20170605_120334609[1]Taking your dog to choir practice must be a lot like taking your toddler to work. By the time it’s over, you vow, “Next time, I’ll get a sitter.”

Annie, 74 pounds of Lab-pit bull love, had knee surgery a week ago today. It was done out of town, very expensive. Now she has a long incision with 13 staples that I have to keep her away from until next week. She is wearing a big blue inflatable collar that looks like a life preserver. She has so many pills I have organized them in days-of-the-week pill boxes, and I have orders to keep her from running, jumping or playing. Right. She can already put weight on her injured leg and she wants to go, go, go.

Choir starts at 7 p.m. At 4:30, we were sitting out in the yard when Annie rolled around on the grass enough to dislodge her collar. A little push with her good back leg and voila, it was off. Oh no! I jumped up and forced the collar back on before she could fight me.

Please God, let her keep it on, I prayed. We still have seven days to go. We ate dinner. I slipped one of Annie’s blankets into the back of the Element and put the seats up so she’d have room to relax. When Annie realized she was going for a ride, she went nuts. She ran, she jumped, and she nipped my arm with her sharp teeth. Unable to jump into the car, she waited for me to lift her. So heavy! I could feel my spine crumbling under her weight.

Before we got to the end of our short, one-car-wide block, Annie had shoved her head between the seats, trying to get up front. Another car was coming the other way, waiting for me to move while I was fighting back the dog. Sorry! Just as I eased around the other car with an apologetic wave, Annie eased out of her collar. Naked dog again. Damn!

I pulled into a neighbor’s driveway, climbed into the back and wrestled with my dog to get the stupid collar on. She wasn’t interested in wearing it anymore. I couldn’t blame her, but I knew she’d be licking and biting her staples as soon as I left her alone. Taking her to choir is a bad idea, I thought, as I clicked her regular collar back on and sealed the Velcro around her balloon collar. I should just stay home. But I had been home constantly since I brought Annie back from the hospital on Thursday. In addition to choir, I needed to return my library book, pick up my mail, and buy a few things at the store. “Lie down!” I ordered the dog. As I drove, I could hear her nails clicking as she walked around. Every other minute, she shoved her face up next to my arm. “Down!”

Post office. I literally ran from the car to my box, grabbed my bills, and ran back. Library. I stopped at the drive-through return, leaned way out the window and let the book thunk into the box. Grocery store. Race down the aisles, glancing constantly out the window to check on the dog. Grab strawberries, bananas, lettuce, cookies, a bag of flour, try to find frozen yogurt, can’t, no time, hurry through the checkstand. Senior discount? Yes, please. Out with my bags. Oh, thank God, she was still in the back. But footprints and nail marks on my choir book showed she had tried to get into the driver’s seat.

Okay, church. Nobody there yet. Annie was going out of her mind with excitement. I helped her to the ground. She dragged me all over the grass and pavement. She did her business. She nosed bits of garbage, chewed on weeds, sniffed at doors, shoved her head into the bushes.

The other singers arrived. “Oh, how cute,” they said, all wanting to pet my dog. Annie dragged me from person to person. They stroked her and talked baby talk to her. They praised her for being such a good dog. They thought she was healing well.

“How is Mom?” someone asked. I let my tongue drop in a sign of exhaustion. My spine was all jumbled from lifting and restraining the dog. My clothes were covered with fur. I had a wet spot on the breast of my blue shirt where Annie’s water bowl tipped over while I was moving it. My arm was bruised where she nipped me.

Annie settled down as we did the readings and started to sing. But when we decided to adjourn to the sanctuary so we could try some of the songs with the organ, Annie dragged me ahead of the others through the vestibule and across the altar to the choir loft. “Slow down! It’s church!”

She raced up the steps, trying to sniff everyone at once. As the organ sounded. “Holy, Holy, Holy!” the dog settled down below us, smiling her doggy smile and panting percussion as we sang. Finally. Peace.

That fell apart when we went back to the chapel to finish our practice. I drained my water bottle to fill a plastic container with water for Annie. She lapped it up, the sound reverberating off the skylight and stained glass window. Then she dragged me to the door. Need to pee. So did I, but I couldn’t leave Annie to go to the restroom. We walked around the yard while the singing went on. Annie and I were there, but it was all about the dog.

After choir, a friend held my stuff while I lifted the dog back into the car. Oh my back.

At home, we each had a snack before we settled on the loveseat with my tablet to watch a TV show. Annie nestled up against me and fell asleep, softly snoring. “I love you,” I whispered. And I do, but this single-parenting business is hard.

Stitches or not, she’s staying home next week. At least with a dog, you can leave them at home for an hour with a bowl of water and a doggy door.

I don’t know much about motherhood, but I have seen that for mothers, it’s all about the child. If the child needs to stay home, you stay home. If the child needs to be fed or changed, you abandon your own needs to feed or change him. If the child acts out in public, you pray everyone understands. At the age I am now, I don’t know if I could be a real mom to a little human. I don’t have the stamina or the patience.

Would I have been up for it when I was young? I’ll never know. But I do know that we need to forgive our loved ones with kids if they seem to go nuts for a few years and don’t have time for us. Forgive them and offer help. Maybe, at least for now, those of us who don’t have children are supposed to help those who do. Try it.

My niece, who is single, recently became a foster parent to a four-year-old boy with special needs. This week, she took in a baby. God bless her, I don’t know how she does it. God bless all who play the mother role in whatever form it takes.