I’m a big believer in stress hormones scooting out of the brain via tears; of course, when you are incredibly sad, they seem to replenish as fast as they are shed. But, sometimes, on a regular day, when tidbits of memories of people gone and the twinges of regret for the things I would have done differently, something will trigger the tightening of the throat to the point of pain and the slow slide of tears down cheeks.

I don’t know if it stabilizes levels or cleanses, but it makes you feel, if not better, more at peace. Ah, thinking about it, maybe it is just better – not that you deserve it, but you’d be dang stupid to not accept it.

Out for Delivery, December 17, 2010, 10:33 am

I don’t know – I wrote several posts about Thomas Bickle when he was sick and when he died of a brain tumor. I guess if you type his name into the search function on this page, you will them. I have been thinking about him lately, maybe because it’s Christmas or perhaps because his light on my porch burned out and I’m in the process of getting a new bulb.

One of the topics his mother, Sarah Bickle, wrote about was a reference to Elizabeth McCracken’s memoir called This Does Not Have to be a Secret. It is about a stillbirth in a French hospital and a not quite right translation that ended up as the dwarves of grief. I thought I’d like to re-read it and looked for it among my posts but it wasn’t there. So I looked back at the blog Sarah had for Thomas and found it HERE.

Obviously, writing about Thomas now does not seem like a cheerful Christmas post, but thinking back about what I know of Thomas, I found myself warmed by the amount of love that surrounded that little carrot-top.

Christmas is one week from tomorrow. I am sitting here plotting my way through those days and think we’re going to have a fly by the seat of your pants Christmas. Probably a buffet Christmas dinner like we did last year; that’s not quite accurate. I plan to set the table with nice dishes and a special table cloth . . . and plenty of chairs, but, last year, with Mother recently gone, at the last moment we picked up our plates and milled around, not wanting to see that empty chair I suppose.

And, strangely and unexpectedly, the mood lightened and we were almost merry. I suppose we’ll just go where the moment takes us. And if that worked out so well for Christmas dinner, I’m going to take the same attitude toward this Christmas week; nothing has to be done. No fancy cooking . . . we all pretty much eat what we want all the time anyway, treating ourselves to cheery restaurant settings during the year. Hello Cheesecake Factory . . . Hello The Golden Lamb . . . See you, again, Logan’s Roadhouse.

No harried wrapping of all that stuff. Not that I’m giving that much this year, anyway. I’m probably going to do my patented AmeliaJake Christmas bag approach. Ah, you think that I will put stuff in bagS; no, I use one bag – but a really festive one – and go back and forth into my cache and come out with something for someone in the bag each time. Not that I won’t wrap some special present in my crazy AmeliaJake way – but that might wind up with a gift looking like a cow. Obviously, I’m tired of the old right size of paper, neat folds, matching tags and lovely bows. I’ve don’t that. Do you know for a few years I even cut out small sections of wrapping paper and made the tags and matched them to the pattern of the paper so they would blend in perfectly?

Then for a couple of years I numbered all of the packages with me having the master sheet. No one knew what was what until Grandma checked her key on the couple of sheets on legal paper stuffed in her pocket – which got mislaid a couple of times.

I’ll play Christmas music such as The Irish Tenors before Der Bingle gets home; he doesn’t like them. Maybe I’ll put together a playlist of Tennessee Ernie Ford singing Christmas songs for him. Then, of course, there is that Redneck Album I bought to send LZP but some young family members might take it over. So, we’ll probably open it and play it and I will groan and the kids will put certain songs on constant repeat. Sorry, LZP, you’ll get it in time for next Christmas.

More than likely it will be a Wubba Christmas with Quentin reuniting with Shane for some quality time together – petting, Wubba tug of war, petting, Wubba throwing, petting, Wubba, Wubba, Wubba.  Now that’s the present I have to really remember to get: more Wubbas. Is that screaming I hear from everyone but Shane?

Sydney’s liver enzymes are still up and so we will pamper him and let him have fat-free snacks and try to keep Shane from driving him crazy with . . . well, you know . . .  the WUBBAS.