I woke up before the alarm. In one of my dreams, my mom gave me a tight hug. That’s something that I needed.
I fixed a breakfast of granola and yogurt, along with an espresso with milk. It took me a while to eat. I actually didn’t finish until I was on the family zoom. This was the first Sunday of the month, so it was open to more family, and I got to see an aunt and an uncle that I don’t always see. That was good.
I cried a bit during the zoom when my dad brought up the fact that we’d be going to a Blackhawks game to commemorate Ambrose’s birthday. I was simply allowed to cry. No one commented on it. That felt good. As if it were a natural thing, and not unexpected.
After the zoom, I had to kick it into gear. I polished my shoes so they would look sufficiently black for the concert. I took a shower, with my white blouse in the bathroom to try and de-wrinkle it a bit. I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread for lunch. And I prepared myself to put a hold on my emotions.
It would be so easy for me to cry instead of sing. Ambrose should have gotten the opportunity to watch me perform with this choir more than once, but he didn’t. Seeing all the other people in the choir with their families could have set me to tears as much as the fact that we were singing a song that we’d sung the year Ambrose did get to watch me. I put on my mom’s tourmaline necklace and put a temporary lid on my emotions.
Then I took my cookies to the fairgrounds, now transformed into a magical Christmas-land, and got ready to sing and play the flute. I asked a friend to take a picture of me with the choir tie on, and she got me laughing.
I had arrived nearly two hours early, as requested. I got my flute and music stand set up, and then we did a bit of last minute rehearsing, including playing through the flute piece, which Jessi and I nailed. Then we were instructed to greet folks as they came in. I sat with a friend at the program table and handed out programs for about an hour. Then a quick bathroom break and into the lineup.
When I first saw “Christmas Carol Jamboree” I thought it was corny, but that song has really grown on me over the last few months. I now love performing it. It’s so much fun, and so fast. It was a great, high energy opener for us. I wish I could have seen the children’s choir hula dancing when we sang “Mele Kalikimaka” but alas their stage is not visible from the choir risers.
“Here We Come a Caroling” was the song Jessi and I played flute on, and that went very well indeed. I received a lot of compliments on the playing during the intermission and after the concert. My favorite compliment though was a woman who was sitting near the front. She said she was mostly looking at me while we sang because I had so much animation in my face. That’s something I really work on, and it’s thrilling to hear that the emotion I put into the songs comes through.
There was a commemoration of Pearl Harbor in the second half of the program. I had to work hard on not crying, because I knew that’s something that would have moved Ambrose, as a Navy man. It reminded me that I want to visit what’s left of the Japanese interment camp that was here in Idaho.
The concert was incredibly fun and I’m sad that it’s all over. No more Monday rehearsals. No more Monday hugs. Singing in a group can be so powerful, and now it’s over again until September.
But at least it’s less than two weeks until I get to see my family.
I helped clean up after the concert, going from random task to random task until I couldn’t find anything else. Then I found my friend Laurie and got the hug that I really needed. We went to a back room and she held me while I cried. She’s been a good friend to me this fall. I really needed that release and to have someone hold me while I cried.
Soon after that, I went home. I’d left the radio playing on the TV, but it had turned itself off so I came home to silence. At least I’d remembered to leave the porch light on. I don’t want to be alone, but I can’t imagine being with anyone other than Ambrose. I’m going to be alone for a while, I know that. I am getting used to it. But the piece of my heart in the shape of Ambrose still aches.