I confess to selling my family short.
When our son was born in October of 2011, I was living in three different locations. First, there was the home that I shared with my sister and brother-in-law. This was kind of my tactical headquarters, and the place where my dog, Honey, resided in peaceful cohabitation with my sister’s two whippets. Second, I had a bedroom at Mommy and Mama’s where I slept most nights and shared the responsibilities of newborn childcare: late night feedings, diaper changes, and the like. Finally, I was also overnighting on occasion at Paul’s condo where we were playing part-time house and trying to acclimate ourselves to living in the same city after months of maintaining a bicoastal relationship; him in New York and me in LA. Needless to say – but of course being a die-hard martyr, I’ll say it anyway – I was perpetually exhausted and felt like I had no real home base. No primary haven where I could recover without perpetually feeling like there were two other places where I should probably be.
Working a full-time job, sleep deprived, and desperately trying to maintain an adequate supply of clean underwear in three dresser drawers located miles apart, I didn’t realize the sizable strain this fractured living arrangement was having on my mental and emotional wellbeing. In retrospect, it should have been clear to me that it was only a matter of time before the stress of it all became too much for me to bear. I should have seen that a breakdown of some kind was inevitable. As it turned out, that breakdown came on Christmas of that same year. Yes, our son was not even three months old when my frayed psychological tether finally snapped. Subsequently, I found myself alone on Christmas Eve, wandering the dark streets in the neighborhood around Paul’s condo, trying to figure out how I had allowed my world to come so completely undone.
Perhaps a little bit of background would be helpful here. Specifically, some information relating to my longstanding, love-hate relationship with Christmas. You see, when I was a child, it was my favorite holiday. I especially loved our tradition of celebrating the day with my dad’s extended family. A large assemblage of Lunsfords: grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings and cousins, and a handful of close family friends. Each year, the festive dinner party culminated with our annual, pirate gift exchange. For me, that joyful, raucous game was always the year’s crowning event. As the decades passed, however, Christmas had become a tad fraught for me. As I grew older, I became aware that my mother had long harbored some resentment about us not being with her side of the family on holidays. Later still, when I began dating, I was hesitant to bring a boyfriend to a large, family gathering while I was still clinging to a lingering, internalized shame about being gay – later compounded by being HIV-positive. And then, when a relationship with a particular man would become serious, I found that I was being pulled – like my mother had been – to spend Christmas with the family of my significant other. And so, as an adult, Christmas was like an unwinnable game of holiday Tetris. One where I would try, against all odds, to keep people, places, and events properly arranged. But without fail, the cascading nature of it all inevitably overwhelmed my limited, emotional skillset, and – well – game over.
Now, with all of my underlying yuletide baggage in mind, finish off this particular rendition of Twelve Days of Christmas with: (go ahead and sing it) five – days – of – work, four hours sleep, three separate homes, two baby mamas, and a newborn in a Bjorn. Yes, it was the perfect homo-holiday recipe for one overbeaten, underbaked, upside-down, frazzled fruitcake. And I was done.
Specifically, on this Christmas eve, I was pushed past the breaking point when Paul invited me to dine out that night with some of his friends. That would mean not being home to help put our son to bed on his very first Christmas Eve, and subsequently I would not be there to wake up with him on Christmas morning. To further complicate matters, on Christmas Day, there were invitations from a now exponentially increased number of branches on our sprawling and complicated family tree. And even if there was some intricately calculated timetable that would make it possible for me to attend my family’s traditional holiday dinner and gift exchange, I would be showing up with a man on my arm who they had never met, two lesbian mommies, and our three-month-old baby. There seemed to be so many conflicting expectations about where I should be and when. In addition, and even more troubling to me at the time, was my concern about what people might think of me when I got there. Even the remotest chance that someone I loved might not accept me and my uniquely configured family, was terrifying. Consequently, it was all of that overwhelming clatter in my head that drove me out onto the street for a self-pitying walkabout on the eve of our baby’s first dysfunctional Christmas.
Fortunately for me, however, the spirits had a plan. Santa would soon deliver a surprising and transformative gift. An old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness, Frank Capra Christmas miracle. A paradigm shifting message that would be surreptitiously foreshadowed in the actions of the people around me, and then climactically revealed in the silent strike of a handcrafted time piece well past its prime.
First, when I finally wandered my way back home, I shared with Paul and the mamas my confusion and fear. They simply and gently took my hand. Plans were made so that I would be able to kiss our son good night, have a nice dinner with Paul and his friends, and we all agreed to share our future Christmas mornings under one roof with our son. In addition, Mommy reached out to my sister, who in turn contacted my Aunt and Uncle to confirm that I would indeed be attending the Lunsford Family’s annual Christmas Day dinner. Albeit with a slightly larger contingency than usual.
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As I peered into the vacant clock, I was struck by a familiar aroma. For me, it was an emotional combination of smells. Like mahogany, cornhusk, and earth. It took me immediately back to my grandfather’s garage. A modest and well-used space where he parked his car, stored his gardening equipment, and built things out of wood. Not just clocks for his family. He also made furniture for friends, playhouses for his grandchildren, and toys and swing sets for kids in the neighborhood. The same fortunate folks who were always welcome to share an assortment of fruits and vegetables harvested from the acre of land my grandparents farmed behind the home they had built in the center of the sunny, sprawling, San Fernando Valley.
I looked back up at the frozen hands on the majestic clock. Every detail so exquisitely and heartfully crafted by my grandfather. And I felt a small pang of disappointment thinking that it may never again keep time. And then, I looked out across the living room at my family. A large assemblage of Lunsfords: grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings and cousins, and a handful of close family friends. And this year, a few additions: my son, his moms, and a man who would eventually be my husband. Many of these same people had grown up with me in my grandparent’s garage. Together we nailed scraps of wood together to make small gliders that we tossed into the air in the open field among rows of tangled grapevines and sprouting onions. We hung enormous sunflowers from the garage rafters and waited patiently for the seeds to dry. We rummaged through dusty jars of jams and jellies put up by my grandmother. We played in the sawdust and watched in amazement as our grandfather made things. So many remarkable things. Now, basking in the glow of so many warm memories, I looked anew at that house full of people; leaning into each other, chatting, laughing and passing our baby back and forth. And suddenly it dawned on me. Of all the wonderous things that were made by my grandparents in that garage, there was one thing that they made that was far more precious and more lasting than all of the others. Our family. My family. And I finally understood. Without reservation. They loved me. All of them. As much as I loved them. And they always had.
It may have crossed my mind in that moment of realization that I was solely to blame for not having recognized the absurdly plain and beautiful truth of my family much sooner. Afterall, they had never said or done anything in all of my forty-eight years that would lead any rational person to feel anything but love. On the contrary, unlike many people I have known in my life, I have always had a family that openly and actively held me close. But somehow, for decades, the world had encouraged me to question their sincerity. Yes, perhaps in the whirl of my reawakening, there was a split second where I could have felt bad. Some regret, maybe, for arriving at this truth so far down the road. Perhaps I could have doubled down on my shame and scolded myself for never simply giving them the benefit of the doubt. But I refused to waste even one more minute with my family on feeling bad. Instead, I embraced the gift of rediscovery. Like Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, reassured by Zuzu’s petals, I was being reminded by an empty clock about a timeless truth that had been in my life all along. And never again would I not believe.
The house was too full of people for me to stay lost in my epiphany any longer. As one of my cousins approached where I was standing, I closed the door on the front of the clock. Once again, I was back fully in the present, but holding tight to the amazing gift that I had just received. My cousin made a comment about our grandfather’s clock no longer keeping time and suggested that it may never get fixed. I smiled and nodded in agreement; knowing that the demands of everyday life might just make replacing the guts in an old clock the kind of project that gets put off indefinitely. And then we both began moving back toward the living room to rejoin the others.
Before I was pulled back in completely, however, I glanced back to where I had just been standing. And although I suspected that our grandfather’s clock may never again keep time, I was comforted in knowing that it would forever mange to keep something far more important. A message for me and my family. To always believe in the extraordinary love that we have for each other. And to never take time for granted.