Our Christmas tree this year will have my mom’s skilled fingers woven all through the lit branches.

There are over fifty handmade, needlepoint Santas to hang.

Each of them whimsical and unique. Santa on a skateboard, Santa holding a long scroll (real paper), his list of names, including my own, curling over his belly.

Santa at the beach.

Santa with a chicken (prescient), and, for my daughter – a complete set of Nutrcracker characters that glitter and dance.

The Mouse King with real beaded eyes and a silver sword.

Sweet Clara in a delicate smocked dress with her matching duck-egg blue bow.

The pirate-eyed Drosselmeier with tiny buckled shoes.

And each of these ornanments is special to me, though I never remember specifics.

Mom came up with a different kit every year. And she dated each one, so I can line them up and count the years.

Even now.

Especially now.

Hanging these things is even more poignant because she is gone.

My mom, always in a tailspin of energy, productive, outgoing and always, always, poised.

I see her at countless meetings, political rallies, bible study classes, and, of course, right after that daily power nap where she was “just resting her eyes.”

I see her pulling the needle and pursing her lips.

She was an ADD swirl before there was a name for it or any sense of it.

She was the detail oriented task master, finisher of projects.

Not like me at all.

And in a funny way, our recent downsizing helps me focus on her today.

Because I’m restrained – only able to pull a limited amount of ephemera from the hundreds of other treasures from our old house’s storage.

No room for more.

No need for me.

But this ever-grieving tree.

My mom is present here.

Bits of her scattered attention, yes. Sometimes a stern hug of reality. Aways a stubborn commitment to perfection that I hated.

And, en masse, the effect is a collective elegance.

And, up close, it is the hyper-focused handiwork of the teeny moments, the counted minutes, the jags between cooking and cleaning and socializing and being a minister’s wife.

The diligent stitches, the tying off of the damn french knots.

These past few months I have been looking closely at my belongings, my stuff, my creature comfort items, all of it.

I’m weighing whether one household item or another is worthy of coming along with us to our new place.

It’s like examining the tedious stitches of my life – the work put into the piece, the sweat, and the sweet, the memories, the sadness, the critical items. You know what I mean.

I’ve never been crafty in the way of my mom or my sisters – they are artists and they make it looks so easy.

I am all fumbles and frustration.

The one decent cross-stitched thing I made, I gave to my grandmother.

It was cute back in those Holly Hobby days.

But turn it over and see the back – it’s one giant knot – a fraying, tangled mess.

Yet Grammy hung it in her kitchen for over 25 years.

Anyway, there is a certain grief to that for me, that I’m not at all like my mother.

But it’s a grief that’s surpassed by the loss of her frenetic body, her charged energy, her way of sitting in the room with half an ear cocked to the room, her ankle bobbing.

Getting so much done.

– how did she do that?

Anyway, this grief I carry is perpetual, it is precious.

It is prompt, in the way I can count on it’s appearing at certain times, like these.

It is painstaking, in it’s remembrance of the tiny, sweated over threads.

It is permanent, it does not leave, it resurfaces now and again, different times, different ways.

But this grief is with me forever, and I am glad of it.

It is present and real.

Like my own hard work this year:

Selling a house of 25 years, locating and buying another that’s 2/3rd the size.

Sizing down, hoarding less, appreciating more.

Looking closely at the fronts and backs of memories from my life.

How I’ve re-connected with a dear friend who helped me adopt a kitten. From A-Z – vetting and naming – litterbox advice and all.

How I’ve savored the online conversations with another old friend who is a writer, too.

How I’ve made a new friend who is an artist.

And, last weekend, I participated in a support group of fellow grievers and made an exciting connection there.

I’m proud of that.

And, all along, it’s like I’m examining that ugly mess at the back of my life’s design, and trying to love and grieve all of the parts of it, and then trying to love it more.

And, as someone I recently met at the grief group says – grieve on.

Happy Holidays, and grieve on.