SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE
(LYRICS) BE FORGOT
A Widow Bit – Jan. 1, 2009
By Mary Koch

            Surely there are worse things than spending Christmas alone. Of course, that’s easy for me to say; I did not spend Christmas alone. Family members joined me Christmas afternoon at John’s gravesite to celebrate his birthday, followed by an assemble-your-own-pizza party at my house.

            In days following, friends would ask in a worried tone, “How was your Christmas?” They were visibly relieved when I reported the family gathering, as if they’d envisioned me lonely and depressed in a dark, empty house.

            It’s an urban myth, that Christmas is the loneliest time of the year and that suicide rates spike during the holidays. Numerous studies refute this common belief; in fact, suicide rates actually decline. But the myth persists, prompting worries about those of us who live alone.

            Before Christmas, a couple friends shared concerns about parents who were adjusting to the recent loss of a spouse. In each case the parent had decided to spend this first Christmas alone – alone.  “She says that’s what she wants,” one friend said of her mother. “Well, it’s his decision,” sighed another about her father. But you could tell they weren’t buying it. Did their ambiguity come from worry about their parents, or themselves – or both, I wondered.

            The New York University Langone Medical Center web site says people believe that “holiday cheer amplifies loneliness and hopelessness in people who have lost loved ones . . . “

            Insisting on being alone may be misplaced martyrdom: “I don’t want to darken your holiday with my grief.”  Or it could be weariness: Life has been challenging enough; why battle weather, traffic and crowds?

            Or it could be part of the acceptance process, necessary for healing.

            I’m confident I could handle Christmas alone, maybe even welcome it, because that’s how I’m spending, and relishing, New Year’s. I’m not only alone today, but free of unhappy after-effects from New Year’s Eve revelry.

            That’s another myth I’m happy to discard: If you don’t have an invitation to a New Year’s Eve party – or don’t have enough friends to host one yourself – you are socially a lost-cause.

            I enjoyed a description of New Year’s Eve parties by British journalist Christina Patterson:  “You can't leave until the clock strikes and people sing, or don't sing, a song of which everyone knows only the first line, and you've had that mortifying moment of fixed smiles, puckered lips aiming at cheeks and missing, puckered lips aiming (even worse) at lips.”

            I remember a New Year’s Eve party John and I hosted many years ago. In the midnight uproar, I spotted one of the women guests giving him an extraordinarily long and deep kiss. He saw that I saw and shot me an unabashed grin. She was no threat to me, to us.

            The memory makes me smile, and I recall that sense of well-being and confidence. I snuggle back into those feelings like a warm blanket on this snowy day. There is comfort in solitude, when we let ourselves find it.