We all know that there’s no place like home. We also know the old cliché that home is where the heart is.
Where will you be spending your holidays?
This year, mine will be spent at my house and my daughter’s. Things have been a little different for our family in 2017. Not exactly where we will celebrate is unusual, but how and why we are celebrating. I think we’re all feeling a little extra warm and fuzzy towards each other since cancer has entered our lives.
It’s funny how that goes. Not that we all didn’t love each other before, because we did. But you tend to take life — and loved ones — for granted sometimes, until something like cancer creeps in and you quickly realize that the people you love can be taken away from you at any time.
That’s how it is with us this season. With my husband and I both battling the disease, yep, it’s going to be a more grateful and loving Christmas and New Year. Because everything changes once your children realize this could be the last holiday season they spend with you.
More Top Picks Best Standing Desk Mats For Home Offices
Now, before I go on, let me say that my hubby and I, thankfully, are both doing pretty well. We consider ourselves to be living with cancer — not dying from it — and although it hasn’t been easy and it has been a totally rude awakening, we are very, very lucky. I just lost one of my lifelong friends who was diagnosed with cancer right before Thanksgiving, and unfortunately died a couple of weeks later. It just goes to show you how precious life can be and how in the blink of an eye, it can be over.
If you haven’t been home to see your family in a while, perhaps it’s time for a visit.
Sure, Uncle Irving can be irritating with his un-funny jokes, and Grandma Betty can drive you crazy with her nonstop talking. And I know you cannot stand it that old Cousin Susie still pinches your cheeks, just like she did when you were a youngster. And you want to tie up the little kids running around like crazies, wiping their chocolate-covered hands on your clothes. And well, maybe your mother’s cooking isn’t the best.
But remember, anything can happen or change within a year’s time. Try to cherish the moments that are happening in the here and now. Because you never know what tomorrow might bring.
All I know is, for me, it’s really good to be alive this holiday season and to be spending it in my own house and in the home of my loved ones. I hope that you, too, will be surrounded by those who mean the most to you and partying in a way that makes you merry and content.
No matter what you celebrate or whose home you’ll be celebrating in, live it up and have a ball! Life is too short to do it any other way.
Here’s wishing all of you peace, love, joy, and good health, now, and in 2018.
Felicia Dechter is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.