Holiday Reflection

Spending holidays alone is a major cause of depression.  That’s true for me.  I’ve been retired for the past ¼ of my life: with a wonderful, paid-for house, a calendar of rewarding volunteer activities, and a contact list of scores of people who are off-line visiting with their friends and family.

For the first ¾ of my life (to date), I have been a family man.  MS-Word is telling me, don’t be gender-specific, but that is the truth; for many people I have been a father-figure, unfortunately, not so much for my own daughter, but we had a second chance.  I retired to bucolic Monte Rio which I dearly love, but the no family hits me on holidays.

The first family I fathered, broke up in the sixties, and I seem to have strived to compensate for that loss ever since.  Once I was more mature, I liked being a father.  It’s still a bitter memory for my first wife but our daughter has turned out better and more successful than either one of us individually; and that’s rare these days.

I spent decades raising kids ever since that first debacle.  I loved every minute of it.  We Dads, especially stepdads, don’t get much acknowledgement; it’s a labor of love, for the mom and the kids.  The summer Bar-B-Que I miss most.  Stepdads mostly play the role of moderator, but when it comes to Bar-B-Que, they rule.

I forced the issue for a few years, and some others tried to continue for a while.  I’m now happily locked into the house in Monte Rio, thinking of getting a cat, and maybe enrolling into another poetry or art class.