Christmastime Is Here

My dad loved Christmas. He loved decorating. He loved putting up the tree. He loved buying presents. And, to be honest, he loved "complaining" about doing all of it. James Brown, Sr. made sure that our house was the family hub around Christmas time. He was responsible for picking my mom's dad up from the Greybound bus station every Christmas Eve, so my granddad could share Christmas with his baby girl and her family. For years, my dad would force me and my brothers to get into a car on Christmas morning and drive around to visit family and friends. It wasn't our favorite thing to do, but no one was going to tell James Brown no, least of all his three boys.

But, as life tends to do, things changed.

My older brother, the middle boy, Kenneth Brown passed away in March of 1999 at 38 . My oldest brother, James, Jr (Jimmy) joined him in September of 2000 at 40. Within 18 months our family had been through more heartache than I would wish on anyone. Christmas 2000 was the worst. The tree didn't go up that year. It wasn't just Christmas, Kenneth's birthday is December 14 and Jimmy's birthday is January 4, so the period that was once filled with great joy was soon full of nothing but memories.

Eventually, I got married and had two girls of my own and my dad's enthusiasm for Christmas returned. The lights went back up. The dancing Santa Claus came back out. And, as he put it, Santa had nothing on Granddad. One year, we got my girls a hair salon/beauty parlor playset and my dad, the 30 year police vet, the old navy man and the toughest man I've ever met let my girls put rollers in his hair and put pretend makeup on him.

And, life, as it is wont to do, changed again.

My father was diagnosed with early onset dementia in 2013. Our last Christmas was 2014 and that evil, destructive disease had taken away a lot of what made my dad, well, my dad. But he still played with the girls and he helped in the kitchen and he told me that one of his greatest regrets was letting me attend the University of Kentucky. He passed away in July 2015 and this will be the second Christmas without him.

My mom doesn't decorate like we used to, every Christmas decoration just a painful reminder that the man that purchased it is no longer here. We don't hear my dad singing along with the Temptation's silent night. And I'm going to try to stumble my way through carving up the turkey for dinner. Christmas just isn't quite the same. But, I remember of the words my dad told me Christmas morning 2000.

He said to me that life never ever stays the same. And sometimes, you have to say goodbye to those that you love the most. He looked me in the eye and said that he believed that he would see my brothers again. He believed that they would be reunited in Heaven and that everyday would be like Christmas. He challenged me to live my life in such a way that the reunion wasn't just a probability, but a certainty.

I'm putting the finishing touches on my daughters' presents. I'm making sure that my mother is taken care of. And I know that I haven't lived up to the charge my father left me, but I'm certainly trying. The holiday season is rough because it is and should be about family. It's rough because there's no quick and easy guide on how to keep celebrating family when there are empty spots at the table and empty spots in your heart. Sometimes you move forward because you have no other choice.

I'm looking forward to Christmas because my dad, James N. Brown, Sr. loved Christmas.