Stephen Yeargin

I got back from Michigan Friday night. Samantha’s grandfather passed away Monday morning.

SIMMONDS, Donald L. – Age 75, of Clio, Mich., died Monday, December 19, 2005 at McLaren Regional Medical Center. A memorial service in his honor will be held at 6:00pm on Wednesday, December 21, 2005 at the Miles Martin Funeral Home. Mr. Vernon Lawrence will officiate with cremation to follow. Don’s family will receive friends on Wednesday from 4:00pm to the time of service at 6:00pm. Donald was born September 18, 1930 in Flint the son of Morris and Virginia (Thompson) Simmonds. He served in the US Marine Corps and worked as an operating engineer with CJ Rogers for over 21 years. He and Betty were united in marriage on March 24, 1967. Surviving are his wife, Betty, sons, Jeff and wife Kim, Jay and wife Terri, daughter, Karen and husband Mike, 5 grandchildren, Shawn, Samantha, Amy, Steven and Angela, a great-granddaughter, Hope, 4 brothers, 3 sisters, and many nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents and 4 brothers.

The endless stream of people dropping off food, the tears, the funeral service and the general cloud of melancholy was a haunting reminder of my own loss of a grandfather in 1999. I’m still not whole since then, and I can really sympathize with Samantha. I never have handled grief very well, but have been fortunate enough to not experience a great deal of it in my formative years. Certain moments during the service cut right through to my soul, reminding me of a very real void. We stayed there until it was clear there wasn’t much more we could offer. Miranda is only in town until Dec. 29, and I should at least attempt to spend some time with her. That was my motivating factor for coming back from Martin so early before Christmas.

It’s not uncommon for me to still be awake into the Christmas hour. As a matter of fact, I’ve spent the last few holidays up on a computer doing something of moderate importance. This time around it’s reworking my Photo & Design gallery into my recently-moved Web site. The original files didn’t handle the move very well, and the database was corrupted for whatever reason. I resorted to just having Gallery simply rebuild the database sans any caption or title information. The captions weren’t all that interesting anyway, and I’ll probably go back and restore the more important ones for the sake of history. My dad’s Web site lost its photo gallery in a similar move, so I’m arguing with Network Solutions hosting to get it back up and running.

So this is Christmas.

We didn’t go to the Christmas Eve church service tonight, although I was almost looking forward to it. I typically only make it to a religious service on Christmas and Easter, neither of which happened in 2005. This past year has been a lot about learning how the next few are going to go. It seems as if nothing is set in stone, with the exception of a few scattered items. My graduation is nailed down, we hope, to August of 2006. The rest of it will be handled as it comes along.

I remember this time last year I was lamenting the loss of innocence in the holiday season. It hasn’t been the same since all of us were a lot younger. Christmas could have fallen on any day in December and I doubt I would have noticed a change. There just aren’t very many constants anymore. I talked to my mom tonight about how we no longer make the mad dash to Paris, Tenn. on Christmas Eve, and to my paternal grandparent’s house in Greenfield, Tenn. on to my maternal grandmother’s house in Jackson, Tenn. on Christmas Day. What I always saw as a tradition was more of a way to keep multiple sides of the family happy. I’m wresting with vaguely similar circumstances this Christmas.

The house in Greenfield has been sold to my aunt. At least this summer’s debacle is no longer and will never again be my problem. I should probably attempt sleep.