"It's Just Too Hard"

"It's Just Too Hard"

“It’s just too hard!” Maureen thought as she juggled the musty cardboard carton down the steep narrow staircase. “All this work and fuss, and for what? I just don’t care what tradition dictates anymore. Who says I have to have a tree this year? If they want trees that’s fine, but I don’t see what the big fuss is all about if I don’t have one.”

Maureen’s foot slipped on the loose carpet on the bottom stair, throwing her off balance. Her elbow banged sharply into the bare pine-boarded wall and she felt the box crush hard against the corner of the doorframe. As she righted herself and her awkward cargo she heard the unmistakable tinkle of shattered glass. Anger and frustration flooded through her veins and tears welled up in her eyes. She struggled hard to resist the overwhelming urge to slam the box back up the staircase, sending it crashing back into the dark dusty attic with all the rest of the abandoned treasures and their shattered pasts.

This year Maureen felt like she belonged up in that musty cobwebbed dungeon. The atmosphere there at least matched her mood a lot closer than the world outside. While everyone else was bright and cheery and bursting with holiday cheer, Maureen felt cold and angry and every much as abandoned as the age-stained baby doll lying half-dressed and pitifully faded in her weathered old crib there in the far dark corner of the attic.

“I wish I could just pack myself away in a carton and fade into oblivion like those things upstairs,” she thought. “But no-o-o-o! Instead I have to pretend I’m actually alive and functional and really ‘into’ this holiday charade, when all I really want to do is to take all this Christmas crap and pile it into the middle of the living room floor and start a bonfire!”

Maureen knew she was getting dangerously close to sinking back into her dark hole of depression, so with a deep sigh of determination she shrugged her shoulder up to wipe the tears from her cheek, stepped out into the hallway and gave the attic door a good swift kick with her heel. She turned the corner at the end of the hall and carefully descended the next set of stairs to the ground floor and set the carton on the floor in front of the tree.

Mason had never been particularly fond of Christmas either, but he’d be ashamed of her now if he could see the way she was wallowing in her own self-pity. But this was her first Christmas without him, and the loneliness was almost unbearable. For twenty-one years, even though they had grumbled and sputtered and complained about Christmas being such a hassle, they had always managed to find ways to bring love and laughter into the holiday turmoil. This year, without her best friend, her soul mate, her reason for breathing-Maureen saw little hope of finding any love or laughter to warm up her cold winter blues. But the thought of letting Mason down, of not living up to what she thought he’d expect of her, was worse than the emptiness inside. Mason wouldn’t allow her to quit, ever!

Reluctantly Maureen squatted down beside the battered carton and wrenched open the flaps. In the corner closest to her, right there on top, lay the shattered fragments of a blue glass ornament. “How fragile and hollow they are,” she mused. “I know the feeling.”

She quickly shook her head and forced her thoughts onto a more productive tract. Peeking out from under the tray of glass ornaments was a green wooden block with white lettering on it. Maureen lifted the tray of shining orbs and set it on the floor beside the box, then reached in and gently unfolded the red tissue paper surrounding the block. A wistful smile played on her lips as she cupped the decoration tenderly in her hands. She reached back and rustled in the tissue wrapping until she found the other half of the hand-made decoration. Ugly orange and black, and certainly not a traditional Christmas theme, but this decoration was more precious to her than garlands of gold.

A genuine chuckle burst forth as Maureen rose to set her treasure onto the mantle. She cradled the little wooden pieces lovingly in her hands; warmly remembering how proud Mason had been of her creation. He had liked it so well that he’d asked her to make another one for him to put on his desk at work. One of his co-workers had offered him ten dollars, but Mason had refused to part with it. There couldn’t have been more than thirty cents worth of materials in it, but to Mason it was priceless. He wouldn’t have sold that decoration for all the gold in Fort Knox.

Maureen never had been able to decide if Mason really liked the decoration for itself, or if he just liked having it on his desk to give him an excuse to brag about her. Each time somebody would walk by and comment on it, Mason would puff up his chest, smile that big toothy grin of his, and say “’Wifey’ made it!” Certainly the workmanship wasn’t anything truly exceptional, but the decoration itself was as unique as the loving bond Mason and Maureen had developed over the years. And it pretty much epitomized their attitude towards anything or anyone that tried to overshadow that relationship between them.

Maureen could feel a warm loving glow enveloping her now as she stood reflecting on her memories. With the help of a few scraps of wood, Mason had found a way to reach out from the grave and give her the strength to carry on. Christmas this year might not be easy, but at least now Maureen could honestly say that it wouldn’t be ‘just too hard.’ With spirits renewed, Maureen lifted Garfield, with his fat orange belly and obstinate black stripes, and set him carefully onto the green hand-lettered blocks that said…BAH HUMBUG.