I'm a monster for tradition on the big five. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween and Fourth of July deserve the full cannon of rite and ritual refinement.
We're the only folks I know who own professional quality Santa and Mrs. Claus suits and know how to work them. The dog has several Halloween costumes and Jennine is a world-class Easter Bunny.
Having been raised Catholic, I see the rest as unholy days of obligation... Arbor, Columbus, Presidents', Labor, St. Patrick's and Memorial days are non-starters because you don't have to do anything. But Valentine's Day, Grandparent's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Boss' Day and my personal favorite "Office Assistant Day" are fueled by greeting card companies, florists and guilt. I make all the appropriate purchases and life goes on. Don't read that I don't love my spouse and parents, I've even had a few bosses I really appreciated, but that's an ongoing process not a one-shot deal.
I was, however, a complete sucker for Mothers' Day in 1984. My daughter, Jessica, was 10 months old, just starting to walk and talk. I dressed her in a bonnet and her frilliest dress for a Mother's Day Brunch at a swank (for Biloxi in 1984) beach hotel. Photographic evidence remains that I wore faux pearls and a ridiculously shiny, bright blue dress left over from college disco days. It was the first time in years I had used hair spray and didn't do it well. I may have looked like a drag queen, but I felt like real royalty taking my place, for the first time, on the Mother's team.
The next 19 were pleasant and unremarkable. From the time she was five until 12, it was about the two of us and I was happy and grateful. One year a couple I worked with, Mark and John, fixed a Mother's Day meal for Jess and I when I didn't have the money to go out and they lacked the funds to travel to their respective mothers. There were single roses for Jessica and I on our plates and I never felt richer.
Jennine joined the celebration in 1997 with carefully crafted homemade cards. They are in a box with a dozen or so spontaneous letters of love and appreciation from Jessica, the most recent from December of this year.
At Valentine's Day this year, the same little girl in the bonnet pictures choose to stop talking to me and walked away. Except for a brief flurry of email when she needed her birth certificate and passport for a job, I've heard nothing from her at all for more than a month. I assume her final exams are over and know she has a job in Corning this summer, but have no way to contact her.
For the last three months, friends and family keep reminding me how close we were and how she'll be back. I no longer allow myself the luxury of believing them. It hurts too much.
It seems every advertisement and news story is pegged to the coming non-holiday. Her absence makes it real this year, brutally real.
It's a lousy way to discover that fake holidays can count too.




Copyright 2004 Judi Griggs