I made a pretty big mistake this year. Actually, truth be known, I made a lot of mistakes this year. But this particular one was a doozie.
You see, I allowed myself to get distracted from the important stuff. Very distracted. Which then led to an abundance of anxiety over everything that wasn’t getting done. The house wasn’t decorated the way it usually is this time of year. I had done zero Christmas shopping even though I had requested and received wish lists from my family. Which, of course, meant nothing was wrapped . . . ‘cause you can’t wrap something you don’t have. I tried to blame social media for my distress since ALL the advertising implies abject failure if you don’t have everything bought and wrapped and under the perfectly decorated tree in the perfectly decorated house the day after Halloween. But deep down inside, I knew it was a me thing. After all, I’m an adult who can allegedly control my reactions to outside influences.
Yeah. Right.
It took the funeral home’s Service of Remembrance to set me straight. We were going because my mother-in-law was to be recognized. Her death in May of this year was far enough removed that it didn’t sting quite as much as it might have had it been closer to the holidays, but it still qualified her for inclusion in the service.
I sat there during the video presentation, listening to the music of Mark Schultz, Willie Nelson, Bread, Diamond Rio and The Wailin’ Jennys, and watching as 314 slides moved across the screens of the televisions perched in the corners of the chapel—314 people who were no longer on this earth to celebrate the season, to spend that time with their families and friends. Many of them were people I knew, and as I looked around afterwards, I didn’t just see people attending a service. I saw husbands and wives mourning the loss of their partners in life, struggling under the burden of grief. There were brothers and sisters who had come to honor their siblings, grandchildren paying tribute to their grandparents. And parents who had been forced to give up their child.
Suddenly, an undecorated house and last-minute gifts didn’t seem so very important. Certainly not worth the stress I had allowed to steal the joy of the season. The things that matter the most aren’t things—and being reminded of all that had been lost also served to remind me of the blessings that still remain.
About the author: Lisa Shackelford Thomas is a fourth-generation member of a family that’s been in funeral service since 1926 and has worked with Shackelford Funeral Directors in Savannah, Tennessee for over 45 years. Any opinions expressed here are hers and hers alone and may or may not reflect the opinions of other Shackelford family members or staff.
