Black Friday is profitable for this consumer too

Black Friday is profitable
for this consumer too

Nov. 25, 2007

By Mary Koch

If anyone had told me I'd be spending Black Friday shopping at K-Mart, I'd have snorted in disbelief. I've never been one for Christmas shopping -- we traditionally ask our family to exchange gifts by donating to worthy causes. Moreover, on my list of loathed big-box stores, K-Mart is second only to Wal-Mart.

And if anyone had suggested that a week earlier I would hang up on my mother in the middle of a phone conversation, I'd have been horrified.

Chalk it all up to the fog of recent widowhood, exacerbated by my longing to get the holiday season over with before it begins. I was warned about the fog. A friend, while driving me home from John's memorial service, said, "Now, you're going to do strange things," and started describing the screwy behavior of another friend after her husband died.

"Why is she telling me this?" I wondered silently. Two months after John's death, I'm beginning to see through the fog just clearly enough to recognize episodes of forgetfulness, oddly-timed outbursts of emotion and questionable decision-making.

The outburst with my mother was generated by a disagreement over whether I should visit her during Thanksgiving while she recuperated from a serious and contagious illness. She didn't want me to make what she considered a sacrifice. The discussion became particularly heated -- on my side -- when she innocently tried to compliment me by praising my "sense of duty."

My mother rarely spanked when I was growing up, but that stung harder than any slap. "Duty!" I protested. "DUTY! Do you think I spent nearly 14 years of my life caring for my husband out of a sense of duty?"

When you make an offering of love, and it is perceived as a fulfillment of duty, that hurts. Giving of yourself to someone you love is "more than a duty, it is a blessedness," said Mother Theresa.

In truth, there was a degree of self-service in my desire to be with Mom. It would be a welcome alternative to a huge, traditional Thanksgiving gathering. It's not that I don't love my family. When we gathered during the week after John's death, tearfully and joyfully remembering him, our combined families -- his and mine -- made the worst week of my life also the best week of my life.

But now, especially during this raucous time of year, I need quiet. I've received many, many words of condolence. Now I need time and space to console myself.

I was given that, ultimately spending Thanksgiving week in my mother's peace-filled apartment as she slept her way back to good health. (Yes, I "won" the argument.) Friday morning, just as I was leaving, I noticed her frayed pj's hanging in the bathroom.

"You need new pajamas," I observed. She agreed and handed me a list of other needs. I delayed my drive home and headed for K-Mart, but not out of duty. There can be, I found, a certain blessedness to a Black Friday shopping trip.

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