Christmas soon

So here we are.  In Arkansas.  That last hour of driving on I40 in the dark with little traffic pretty much did me in.  At least when there's traffic, I feel grounded.  Like I know what's coming at me and where the road is and there's at least a reasonable assurance that the pavement doesn't just disappear over the next hill.

It took me 30 minutes longer than it did Ed, but what the hey!  We saw a fox!

Four nights, possibly longer if it snows enough to screw up the trip home.  I'll log on in the morning and check the weather.  All these morons (not local ones, national ones) get so excited about a White Christmas.  All that means to me is traffic delays and the possibility of a very scary drive home.

This holiday tradition sucks.  We should stay home at Christmas and travel in the spring and fall--travel with spring flowers and fall colors.

Enough griping.  I'm here and even though I never really liked my father-in-law all that much, I miss his presence.  For so many years he was here and lucid, talking a little more than I'd like but ever so loving, so kind and secure--the boss of benevolence.  And then there were the years when he became a very confusing child, sort of scary but more like...puzzing.  Depressing as hell it was to watch, but not so bad--he had a very gentle decline.  Last Christmas he was confined to bed, I think...or was it after the winter?  At some point they put his hospital bed in the living room and just cared for him there, quietly, discreetly, lovingly.

Now his absence is a great, gaping hole.  Even his spot at the desk is clear.  But his presence fills the house as it never did when he was alive.

Back to Christmas.  Christmas sucks when I don't have "home" to go to.  Mom always waited for us, no matter how late we were getting in.  We'd pull in the driveway after eleven hours of hard traveling and the motion sensor light would go on and she'd soon be at the door, crying a little and pulling us in.  Usually it was pot roast on the stove--she knew Ed liked it--and a few vegetables.  God!  I miss her so bad.

Dad would be there, going about business as usual, but I knew he was waiting just as well.  He'd put a few extra beers in the fridge for me, or just keep an eye out to the side, waiting for us.  He was annoying as heck but it was worth it--

He was Dad.

Christmas without them...the second one, I think.  It's not really Christmas.