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Melancholy Christmas
By xxxxxxxxxx, Section Cats Posted on Sat Dec 18, 2004 at 12:52:15 PM GMT

Why is it Holidays have to be sprinkled with Melancholy?

One of the clients that comes to our office, who is 23, has discovered recently that she has a cancerous tumor in her breast. This girl (I say that because to me at 23 that is what she is...very young and with life just starting basically) is so responsible and very independent and just one of the nicest people you would ever want to meet. She shared this news with us just last week, which is when she found out.

It truly saddened me. Not because I know her and like her and think she is a great person, but because she is so young and has her whole life in front of her......a wonderful relationship with a man she adores...plans to have a family and she has her own business.......very successful. It seems so sad that she may be looking at something that could cut all that very short. Too damn young for that.

I guess the point is, I can handle the idea that an older person who has lived their life and has seen and experienced a long life is expected to part from this world......when its someone young and full of life and just starting, well, you just don't expect that, it seems so wrong.....out of order or something.

In spite of this news, this woman has done all her Christmas shopping......decorated, gone on as if nothing was different. I admire and applaud her courage and ability to smile in the face of this. Makes me really grateful at a time like this that I have good health and a wonderful child and have lived my life pretty much the way I wanted to, despite some setbacks and mistakes, I have enjoyed mine immenseley.......that is my wish for her as well....to enjoy and experience life, not leave us much too soon.

Perhaps that is why we have Melancholy as well as Joy at Christmas. There is so much to be thankful for and yet there is the sad parts that touch our hearts and bring tears to our eyes.....so that we cherish all that is good and loving and joyful that much more.

To all of you, I wish a very Merry Christmas a Happy New Year and live life to the fullest......enjoy it and savour it......it is much too short to be taken for granted.

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Melancholy Christmas | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)

2ch... (none / 0) (#6)
by Bold Marauder on Sat Feb 26, 2005 at 04:38:26 PM GMT

down the hall, catch the elevator, go west a timezone, watch out for the creepy otakus in dollsuits.

--
.-=Welcome to the Vaginal Grid=-.

_ (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by NerdGirl on Tue Dec 21, 2004 at 06:30:44 AM GMT

Cancer isn't the death sentence it once was. Assuming they caught it early, they may remove the lump and that'll be the end of it. Maybe radiation or mild chemo just to be sure it's gone. Hopefully the tumer is well-enclosed, no metastasis. We can all hope and pray for that at least.

Would we ever recognize joy if we had not seen sorrow, or know hope without experiencing despair?

I agree. (none / 0) (#2)
by xxxxxxxxxx on Wed Dec 22, 2004 at 07:55:22 AM GMT

Sometimes I could live without the despair though!

Another one of our clients called in yesterday to cancel an appointment, seems her husband was killed on Dec. 2nd. How he was killed was what got me the most.

They guy had been in a work related accident injuring his spine and causing him severe pain, constantly. He had one of those little boxes that you hit when the pain is the worst and it is supposed to medicate it and do some sort of electro-therepy as well. He was on some heavy duty pain meds, which out of the blue, the doctor decided to take him off of....as in 'cold turkey'. This man could not deal with the pain and was going to a psychiatrist to try and help manage the pain and the anger and depression he was having coming off of the meds. He decided he had enough and brandished a gun in the building that his Psychiatrists office was in. 911 was called, the police came, he would not drop the gun, they shot and killed him.

He did this because he knew if he committed suicide his wife and kids would be left with nothing.........this way they keep their assistance and insurances and the such and will get money. Had he committed suicide, by own hand I should say because basically that is what he did, he just used the police to do it. The worst is, the gun was not loaded and once the officer found that out, he had a horrible time dealing with the fact he shot a man who was brandishing a empty firearm.

There are days when I wish I could just go crawl into an episode of Andy Griffith, get Aunt Bea to make me a hot cup of coffee and give me a slice of her prize winning apple pie. No violence, no horrible circumstances, just Barney Fife around to annoy the hell out of you, and that I could live with. :-)

[ Parent ]

Suicide by Cop (none / 0) (#3)
by Beef on Wed Dec 22, 2004 at 10:34:35 AM GMT

is a fairly common occurrence. It can be extremely traumatic for the officer/s involved in the incident. There are some support groups and other resources out there:

http://www.suicidebycop.com/

On the subject of why Christmas is such a melancholy time, I think there are three basic reasons:

1. Society places a huge amount of pressure on people to BE HAPPY DAMET! But sometimes you're not completely happy. Sometimes you encounter sad things, like 23-year-olds with cancer. So you feel like there's something wrong with you because you're not filled with "joyous holiday spirit" in the "most wonderful time" of the year.

2. There's no daylight. Where we live, the sun rises at 7:30 am and sets at 4:00. It's just turning light when I go to work, and it's dark when I get home. People need sunlight. I actually go to tanning booths for short doses of UV light every week or so.

3. Buying gifts, travelling to relatives, hosting relatives, long-term family disputes being brought to the surface once more... it's just a generally stressful time.

--
Be conservative in what you do. Be liberal in what you accept from others.
[ Parent ]

absolutely! (none / 0) (#4)
by xxxxxxxxxx on Wed Dec 22, 2004 at 01:04:59 PM GMT

Nothing like family squabbles trying to be ignored or passed over to have holiday festivities and having them surface anyway. Ha!

As much as I miss my family now that they are gone (I have 2 sisters left, the rest of my family passed away) I don't miss the arguments from relatives who came to visit, or the drunk who always smelled bad and wanted to kiss every woman under the misteltoe, or the Aunt who thought she knew all the answers to everything!! Sometimes it is a mixed blessing. :-)

My daughter gives me great joy and rekindles that holiday spirit with her excitement and her worrying me to death about opening presents ('oh please, just one now, I won't open anymore til Christmas, I promise Mom!). It is fun trying to hide things so she won't know what she is getting, and much more a challenge, wrapping things so she can't find out what it is!! That becomes real work at this point.

Even with the sadness, the tragedy, the things I see wrong in this world, I still have hope that someday things will be better....I hope for my daughter and her generation and the ones after that life will be better and we will learn from our mistakes.

[ Parent ]

Melancholy Christmas | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)

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If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen to either of you for the rest of the day.

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