The children were nestled all snug in their beds while visions of sugar plums danc’d in their heads.
Depending on who you think wrote that famous poem I don’t think Clement Moore nor Henry Livingston were caregivers or needing care during the creative process. If they were, I applaud them for getting past the ‘ugly’ of the whole deal.
In our house of three, where two are caregivers and the adult child is the care-needer, none of us have any sugar plums dancing in our foggy heads at the moment. Any sugar plums in our heads are wallflowers this year, kinda like last year – only different. Last year our son was home and our disabled/needy one was full of holiday cheer and her sugar plums were doing the hokey-pokey once in a while. Until we ended up in the ER with her. The dance was over but at least she got the chance to experience a few days of those famous sugar plums doing a jig or two.
This year the boy isn’t coming home for the holidays but he will be here for his sister’s birthday in February. Fantastic! It will be Christmas, Valentines Day, Sis’s Birthday all wrapped into a long celebration of family. So Bossman and I will try hard to brighten these upcoming days for our daughter – the needy one; the sugar plum-free one. Over the last three years of holidays she’s been able to joke about her disability and illness by calling herself Tiny G after Tiny Tim. But, Tiny Tim didn’t have a lovely pink walker like Tiny G does. He had that crippled little tree branch of a crutch.
I realized how much she needed a sugar plum last night when I asked if I could do anything for her. She said, “Yeah. Push me down the stairs.”
During my sleep no sugar plums danced in my head; only her words. They pounded and kicked. I knew I had to get them out of my head and this is how I do that. I write. I write and then I can breathe again. She’s having a bad few days and they will pass slowly and painfully. Picture a ballroom dancer with shards of glass in her shoes dancing for hours trying to smile and be brave. G’s braveness had run out last night and I thanked God she wasn’t at the bottom of the staircase when I woke before the sky lightened. Steven King would have had a whole new movie to make.
I’m praying for all caregivers and care-needers to have a sugar plum dance in their head this holiday. Just one will do.