The Loss of Beloved Traditions
By: Esme Rogue
Tags: Christmas, Journal, Anonymous, Family, Foster Care

Photo by Gabriel Garcia Marengo on Unsplash

As I am typing this passage, I sit alone in my room. As singular and solus as the tree pictured above. My holiday celebrations have finished along with the dry tears that stained my once smiling face. Last night was Christmas Eve, and my celebration then is identical to now. Sitting on my bed, music humming in my ear, and thoughts about my life consistently buzzing with the rhythm of the melody. I have always valued the quality time spent with my family over the materialistic worth of presents. As I look into my past, I envy my friends who seem to so seamlessly have the perfect families.

When I think of Christmas, I am reminded of the best memory of my family I have. I was nine years old at the time, and it had been the picture perfect gathering. My brother, sister, and I had woken up together to try to get an early look at the gifts we had received that year.

Let it be known we had grown up impoverished, our step-father working as a welder and our mother staying at home. We never expected much as we were raised upon the morals of gratefulness. At our ages of nine, eleven, and thirteen we had experienced more than our peers at schools ever had. My brother’s biological father left my mother when he found out she was pregnant, whereas my sister and I’s biological father had beat my mother till she left him. As for what I can remember of my childhood, my parents had tried their hardest to provide for us, however there were many a night when we would go without hot water, electricity, and food. It was on these nights I would lay awake in my bed unable to sleep from the sound of my mother’s harrowing sobs that she tried to muffle into her pillow. Although I had only been nine at the time, I remember trying to rationalize the suffering God had put my family through. Although my mother is an avid Christian, it is because of the years at that house that I lost my faith.

On Christmas Eve in 2012, my sister and I stayed up the majority of the night, partly because we were excited and partly because we had a tradition to wait up for Santa for as long as I could remember. My sister had woken me up on that Christmas morning, at the time we had shared a bed and a room, but she was my best friend so it had never bothered me. After she helped me fix my hair, we headed towards my brother’s room. We woke him up which had been a fight on its own, as he had been a thirteen year old boy raging with anger and hormones. After some time we managed to get him from his bed, and we approached the door to the downstairs. The house was old and as my brother turned the crystal knob, my mom yelled up the stairs telling us to wait at the stairs. With the Christmas jitters we grew impatient, but followed her orders while excitedly talking about the presents we would be receiving. Soon she instructed us to sit on the stairs with our eyes closed, and she led us into the living room while we shielded our eyes. At the end of her countdown, we unsheathed our eyes to what had seemed like it was straight from a Christmas commercial. I remember how wide my eyes had gone as I saw a new bike awaiting me in front of the Christmas tree. The most presents we had and would ever receive awaited us. I remember thrashing through wrapping paper with my sister to reveal a brand new bunk bed. My brother smiled the most I have ever seen as our step-father handed him the keys to a small motorized scooter that he had been working on secretly. Everything felt so pure and serene.

Every year I look back at that Christmas fondly, vividly remembering the deep expressions of gaiety stained upon my family’s faces. However, as I type this I realize that no matter how perfect that day had been it can not justify the horrific experiences that had happened within my nine years that I had lived within that house. Unlike the years prior, my sister did not stay and wait for Santa with me last night. She went to her boyfriend’s house to be with his “picture perfect” family. Where she stayed with him in his family’s suburban home, opening presents with his family, smiling with them as she used to at me. Unlike the other years, I was not able to annoy my brother into waking up on Christmas Day with me. As a matter of fact, I have not celebrated or seen my brother in almost three years. Christmas 2018 was the last time I had seen him in person, and it had not been as picturesque as the Christmas of 2012. So I sat alone last night, tears and hives aflame as I realized I was truly alone. My sister had her boyfriend and my brother now had his wife and two children, with another on the way. My step-father is in prison, and my mother is alone in her new house. I was crying into my pillow, wondering if things would have been different had I never been taken into Foster Care. However, the tears struck down my face harder as I came to the realization that if I had stayed in that house things would have only been worse. Because of this, I wiped my tears and called my brother, telling him how I felt so lost. He consoled me and told me that even if he were 902 miles away from me, he would always be with me. I was grateful for his words, but there was still that hole that he and my sister had left me with. I felt replaced they both had new families and forgot about me, they forgot about our traditions. They forgot that the only other people I had were them while they had been able to find others.

Now we find ourselves at Christmas Day, an almost exact replica of Christmas Eve. However, my once dried tears have begun to wet my face again as I type this. My sister and her boyfriend arrived at my Grandmother’s house, who is my caretaker through Foster Care, at 11 am. She had texted me at 6:35 am to tell me “Merry Christmas” but it had taken her almost five hours to get here? Her boyfriend’s home was only a 45 minute drive away, so this stuck with me. It made me wonder if I was such an insignificant and miniscule part of her life that she did not care she was late. However, I put on a smile, trying to create a good memory of this Christmas. It may be selfish, but I held a grudge against her boyfriend while he was at my Grandmother’s house as I was jealous of the attention she gave him. After he left, I stayed civil with her, trying my best to get along with her. We left later to go to my uncle’s house where we exchanged gifts. Everything went well while we were there, and my aunt offered to drive us home. While we were in the car my sister and my cousin were texting, and I, being nosy, prodded till they told me what it was. She was planning on staying with my cousin tonight, and they proceeded to plan the night while I sat bewildered both at my lack of an invitation and at my sister’s coldness to me after I told her how I felt about last night. We arrived at my Grandma’s house and I walked in silently, ignoring her as she asked me what was wrong. It hurt me even more that she could not tell what was bothering me. Before she left she asked me if it was because she was staying with them, and I shortly replied with a yes. She proceeded to yell at me, calling me a bitch as she walked to the door, but as she turned before closing the door I yelled back, “Go ahead, leave me again.” With that she turned and slammed the door behind her, leaving me on my own once again. So I sit here, writing to myself, trying to justify my feelings. I just wish I could have what everyone else does, but I guess some people have to go through what others could not handle. But at only seventeen years old and with so many wounds, I do not know how much more I can handle.

“I can not say things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if we are to get better.” — George C. Lichtenberg