Well as long as I brought it up I'll share the story too (not that most of you care). Maybe getting it off my chest will help me get over it.
Christmas was coming up and I was eighteen. My mom had to go up to Seattle for some more tests (she'd been battling cancer for ten years). As always I kinda shrugged it off and took the opportunity to have friends and the gf over. Then dad called to tell me it had gone too far and there was nothing left to do. The day they got home he took me aside and told me that this was going to be her last Christmas, probably her last major holiday, so to do what I felt I needed to accordingly.
I've always been independent, always bucked the system and denied authority. I also got VERY selfish and self-centered during high school. When it sunk in that this was it I suddenly realized how much I'd wasted, and how much I'd hurt my parents with my attitude and actions. I wanted so desperately to make up for it before she was gone, but how do you change so much when you've got no time? I tried to be with her more, help her do things, just talk to her - tell her I loved her and that I was sorry. I think that was really the most important thing but at the time it didn't seem to be enough.
When I went Christmas shopping with her she noticed this pair of really nice slippers and commented that she'd always wanted a nice pair like that but my dad would never allow spending that much on slippers. I don't know why, but that just overwhelmed me. I'd been a bastard to my mother for years, and all she wanted was a $80 pair of slippers to keep her feet warm during the winter. It suddenly hit me that since I'd quit my job to have more fun and spent all my money on friends and my gf that I didn't have the money to get them. I'd long since burned my economic bridges with family, so I felt totally lost. Stupid, I know. An adult having a breakdown over $80. But that's what it is when you're losing everything...it's stupid little things that look and feel like mountains on top of you. So that's what it all became for me. The way to make up for all the crap become inexorably intertwined with buying her those stupid fvcking slippers.
I tried everything I could think of; cleaned gutters, odd jobs, borrowed from anyone I could. I ended up $45 short two days before Christmas. I remember not sleeping at all, just kind of being in a daze. I walked around town aimlessly, consumed. I ended up in front of my cousin's house. Years before he'd offered me a job at his store when my parents couldn't think of what else to do with me. I took it and jerked-off, left, and really damaged the family relationship. But he was very well off and I was desperate. I went in and confessed everything to him, and begged him for $50 so I could make it happen. Of course he did it without a second thought.
I bought the slippers. Mom was overjoyed. I was washed clean. Mom died a few weeks later. I somehow forgot all about the money I borrowed. I went off into the military and across the country and did my growing up thing. Last year we received word that my cousins father had passed away. When I went to the services I brought an envelope that contained a letter and $50 + interest over 15 years, and $50 more. I told my cousin how much that simple act had meant, despite its sillyness. I told him how $50 to someone who didn't deserve it had bought that person peace of mind during a very difficult time,and changed the way they viewed life and work and money. I thanked him.
So anyway, this morning I heard that song. What are the odds that at Christmas time there would be a song about that?
Sorry for the length, hopefully it helps me somewhat. Thanks for listening. Merry Christmas.
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