The other evening, according to the exciting but usually rather unfathomable statistics on the StatCounter website, a mysterious someone in the Plymouth area read the entire story of what happened to my mother during her final stay in hospital for quite some time and were so drawn to it that they leapt from posting to posting until the entire tale was done. I'm not sure what that did to cheer up their evening (very little, I imagine...) but at least they seemed to be drawn to it and, presuming that they were not some villain trying to build themselves a false identity, seemed to read it all. As they departed back into the big, unknowable world without making any remarks, so I don't know who they are or what they made of that protracted and rather sad account, but only that, according to the statistics, they spent an awfully long time reading rather a lot of it.
I do keep wondering whether, as I go to mum's flat for my obligatory weekly check on the old place, and always seem to find yet another cluster of Christmas cards from people whom we were unable to inform back in October, that reading my strangely personal little postings is the way that some of them will eventually find out what became of her, if they are the kind who will "silver surf" and do their researches.
The problem is that, in most cases, an indecipherable signature with no return address means that, whilst I will do my best, it's still rather unlikely that I'll be able to let a lot of them know and they'll just have to make the assumption that they will no doubt come to when they don't receive a corresponding card.
Is that how we all drift away...? By our lack of Christmas carding will our fate be revealed... If that's the case, most of the people I know will assume I never made it out of the last century...
Despite the fact that it's never been the easiest time of the year for any of us, because a sense of duty and commitment has always managed to suck the fun out of it all, somehow this year's festivities seem to have little point to them and feel as if they are existing in a vacuum of sorts.
Sometimes I think my sister rings me these days because she misses ringing mum with bits of news like the fact that it's been snowing which is, I suppose, why I am still rattling out these pages every so often, because there's nobody else to rattle on about this trivial sort of stuff to...
Strangely enough, having noticed that evening that my words had been read, when I awoke in the middle of what was a particularly wild and stormy night, for some unknown reason, this brought my mind around towards memories of the annual church candlelit carol services of my childhood which we used to get dragged along to attend on the evening of the last Sunday before Christmas throughout my childhood.
I suddenly had a very vivid memory of being snuggled up against mum's fur coat and being fascinated (and warmed) by the candles, hearing all the old familiar carols and not being able to read the words unless you picked up one of the hot glasses of wax to light the pages of the hymn book...
For some reason, the members of our family always sat in same pew for years, one with a memorial plaque which I struggle to remember the words of now but which was once so familiar to me that I would probably instantly recall to mind every single word if anyone showed it to me now.
I can more vividly recall the mild excitement of the decorated church with all of the sprigs of holly on the silver foil-wrapped planks and boards where the candles in drinks glasses (well, it was a Methodist establishment) would be standing several inches apart, cold and ready in the morning, and comforting in the darkness come the evening in that draughty and wooden pew-filled old building. Stolid, upstanding members of the community with names like George (for it always seemed to be the same people) would be going around the church carefully lighting each and every one of them, before moving across to the choir area where their booming but oh-so-familiar voices as 'official' members of the choir would add to the atmosphere of the occasion.
At the front of us all, the massive (and eventually preserved in the replacement building) stained glass windows would be lit from outside and, for many years, until I got far too "grown up" and cynical, the whole occasion finishing on a rousing chorus of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!" would mean that Christmas had officially begun...
The building is long gone, of course, replaced by a modern version in the late 1980s, and I don't think I ever attended the replacement version of that service in the new church because by then I'd got to an age where I no longer believed in that sort of thing...
It seems perhaps most appropriate to mention this today, the last Sunday before Christmas, especially as it has been rather hard this year, despite finally being "free" to do what I choose for the first time, to actually enjoy the run up to Christmas in any way, shape or form.
I can't help it, but I sense the Grim Reaper standing at my shoulder...
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