Five Parties...Five Days

Christmas Party

It dawned on me this past weekend how many Christmas parties that I had been invited to, yet I didn’t plan one for my office.  So in our staff meeting yesterday, I announced that we’d be having a party at my apartment.  The Filipino girls cheered.  I’m finding Filipinos love any excuse for a part.  So with only a day’s preparation, the girls excitedly prepared the shindig. 

Im feeling a little under the weather, so the girls planned everything.  It was nice seeing everyone socially out of the office.  Having them in my home really meant something special both for them and me.  We all had a great time.  They girls brought so much food.  We ate and ate and ate.  I really like the people I work with.  It is becoming my second family.  After we feasted, we did a gift exchange.  I had everyone show up with a $6-10 gift.  No one had ever done a gift exchange before.  The idea of stealing someone else’s gift was a riot.  Poor Jerilyn, got the gift she loved stolen from her three times.  Now this is a girl, that doesn’t make a lot of money, and sends all of it back home to her son and husband.  Most Filipinos here, are the wage earners for their family.  They have to be here.  Its pretty sad.  Even with America facing the recession, we still don’t have to leave our families for years at a time in order to ensure they have enough food to eat.  I was pretty touched.  Tanya, Khalifa’s daughter, and a very dear friend.  Wound up with the prized “purse” possession that Jerilyn so desperately wanted.  At the end of the party, I saw Jerilyn walking out with the purse on her arm.  Tanya had given it to her.  She and her husband Raimond are just great people.  They have the most adorable kids, 4, and 6 I think.  It so makes me want to have more. 

I am in the midst of five Christmas parties in five days.  Tanya invited me to the Shaheen Christmas party on Christmas day, because she knows I’ll be alone.  I’ll be the only non-Shaheen there.  I feel like the adopted step-son.  Kind of like Oliver on the Brady Bunch.  They are taking good care of me. 

It was a tough day for me emotionally.  The talk of family reunions and the holidays, made me miss my family.  Not just my kids, but the tradition of having a holiday meal, with my uncle, sisters, parents, grandparents.  Its been nearly five years since I had a holiday meal as a family.  You never really appreciate all of that, until you don’t have it anymore.  I was always bored of family gatherings before.  Now nothing seems sweeter that eating cranberry sauce with the people I love.  I know you aren’t supposed to look back, and that God has a plan for my future.  But I miss the family and the life I used to have.  I think Im a little melancholy right now.  I talked to my kids the other day.  I talk to them about once a week.  You know how you know your family so well..that you can tell what they are thinking and feeling without ever having to use words?  I tell my acting students all the time, that 80% of communication is non-verbal.  Well when you can’t read body language, you have to rely upon tones and inflections to pick up sub-text of the conversation.  The kids words made it seem like they were ok…but I sensed something different.  Im not really sure what it was.  Maybe they just missed me as much as I miss them.  Our relationship is changing unfortunately.  But I could sense something wasn’t right with them and other than prayer…im powerless to do anything about it.    I feel like Im living and breathing in a Harry Chapin song and im trapped.  Cats in the Cradle always made me cry to begin with.  Now my life seems to be mirroring it.  Yet…I know I’m in the center of God’s will as surely as I’ll take my next breath.  Why did God call me away from my family?  Im not sure I’ll ever know the answer to that.  But I just have to keep the faith…that God will protect them as surely as he is protecting me. 

Please keep me in your prayers…I feel like Im under heavy spiritual attack again, both emotionally and physically.  That must mean, I’m doing something right.