One of my favorite Christian worship singers is an unknown folk musician by the name of Noelle Shearer. Noelle’s music speaks directly to my soul on so many levels. She has a handful of albums but on one particular album, the Arc of Grace she has a song titled “Undo the Laundry.” While I have no idea about the truth behind the song, the meaning resonates with my heart every time I hear it.
The chorus goes like this…
I wish I could undo the laundry, unclean the clothes, I’d give anything to dirty up his favorite morning robe for the smell of his cologne, the warmth of where he’d been. If I could just undo the laundry, maybe it would bring him back again.
As I was “undoing” Christmas at my home, carefully wrapping up each ornament in tissue paper, Noelle’s song popped into my head. I began to think about all the ornaments that my mom has stored at her house. My tiny painted hand prints, angels that kiss, Popsicle stick crosses, that candy cane I sewed when I was 10. I honestly haven’t thought of all those ornaments in years, but as I undid our Christmas, it took me back to the time when I was younger and I would watch my mom remove each ornament from the tree. Telling a story, reminding me of why or what the meaning was behind the ornaments. Taking the tree down was very solemn. Not the same festive thrill of setting it up.
After my parents divorced, my mom never celebrated Christmas. She never has had a tree. She does gifts but it isn’t “Christmas” as one would imagine. It is definitely not the Christmas that I knew as a child. Once my Dad remarried and my grandmother died, I stopped going home during the holidays. It was often more depressing to be there, than to be away.
I assume that the majority of my childhood Christmas ornaments are still tucked safely in a box somewhere in her home. I slightly shudder at the thought of what it will be like when I come across that particular box.
Ornaments and memories that have been sealed for more than 20 years. I think about what it will be like to undo my childhood Christmases, one yellowed piece of newspaper at a time. To have so many good memories wrapped up in such grief. The grief of my parents divorce, the grief of never spending another Christmas with my mother, the grief of so many losses.
If I could just undo the Christmases, just dirty up the memories, would it make them more tolerable? Would it make unwrapping that tiny silver bell with the red ribbon painless? Would those tiny kissing angels undo the hurt.
I know that there are potentially more Christmases that I could spend at with my Mom, but I also know that those Christmases of yesteryear have long since died. Maybe I need that box of ornaments now, to start undoing before it’s undone for me.
Maybe next year, I need to convince my mom that we need to redo Christmas. To buy a big tree, bring out all those sparkle ornaments and create a Christmas memory that can’t be undone. Maybe, just maybe, there is still time to undo Christmas.
(Luke 2:19) But Mary Melanie treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.
It’s a hard season of life sometimes, isn’t it? I miss my mother more than I have words for, but somehow manage to keep pressing on. Praying for you.