We weren’t much more than children when we met. Both new brides of young airmen stationed overseas, we were thrilled to find our hometowns were in adjacent states. We became fast friends. You do that when you’re a military wife. Your friends become family. Cindy looked extremely young for her age. Seriously, she looked twelve when she and her new husband moved into the flat below ours. She was eighteen. I was all of twenty. We hung out together while our husbands worked. We did crafts. We shopped. I think we tried our hand at knitting. We shared our families when they came to visit. Her “Nana” became my “Nana”…my mom, her mom. We shopped a lot. We didn’t buy much, but we shopped. It wasn’t long after Cindy arrived that I became pregnant with my first child. One afternoon, Cindy and I were at the hardware store buying batteries for a flashlight when the jolly clerk asked her, “Are you having fun shopping with your mummy?” I whipped around and asked, “Excuse me…what did you say?” He repeated that he was asking “my daughter” if she was having fun shopping with her mum. I nearly died! I mean, really…you feel so awful about yourself when you’re big and fat and hot and sweaty…then someone mistakes your best friend as your daughter. And you aren’t two years apart! It was a turning point in my life. My youthful innocence was left on that hardware store floor.

A poem about grief and the holidays.

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There is a historic district in my hometown that has the most amazing homes built by lumber barons, oil and gas men, lawyers, doctors, and government officials in the latter half of the 1800’s. Every summer, the Julia-Ann District holds a garden tour and every Christmas they hold a tea and tours of these magnificent mansions. I have a close family friend who owns a house that is like living in a museum. It is stunning, truly. I have always wanted to volunteer for the Christmas Tour and this year it worked out. I led tours through a home that once belonged to a family in the oil field machinery business and now houses the offices of the WV Baptist Convention. It is a three story home built in 1880 and was really quite modern for its time. I climbed up and down steps for five hours this afternoon so I not only had the fun of leading tours, I also got my exercise. By 5:30 last evening I had climbed three stories…24 times! Wowza…and that was in cowboy boots! It was great fun. I’m thinking I really need an entire Victorian wardrobe. I love the fashions of that era. But…it depended on where you stood on the social ladder whether you sat in the lap of luxury or served those that did.

If this is your first Christmas without your loved one, you must be prepared for something. Facebook Memories. They pop up, unbidden. They take you back, whether you want to go or not. I remember seeing the memories before the holidays, but man…once they started showing me Thanksgivings and Christmases past? That was brutal because I wasn’t prepared.

I’m in a different place now, for the most part. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel Mr. Virgo’s absence or that I don’t ever get sad. I do. Just not as deep and not as long. A photo from 2009 showed up this morning. It was just the tree in the living room. Then I remembered this one and went searching for it. This was his last Christmas. We couldn’t possibly have imagined that. We were back in the mountain house after having lived away for a few years. We always put our tree up on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We watched “White Christmas” and football. We had a nice dinner and sat in the dark with the lights on the tree as the only illumination. Mr. Virgo had this special brand of candle that smelled of pine. OMGosh! That thing reeked…but he loved it and I tolerated it for him.

While I don’t relish snow and cold, I’m leaving soon to go see my family in Colorado. A Colorado Christmas is a beautiful thing, especially with grandchildren around. They’re getting so big! That’s the hardest thing about being away from them…seeing how fast they grow. My heart is torn…I truly feel “home” in two places so I have to split my time. And for now, home base is in West Virginia.

Mr. Virgo loved the ghost hunting shows. We would sit and watch them every week…week in, week out. I kinda liked Ghost Hunters because I liked the stars. But I could not stand Ghost Adventures because Zach made me crazy. We took the Ghost tour at the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, WV. My late uncle actually was the administrator there back in the ’60s. Mr. Virgo really enjoyed that tour. He wanted to tour the prison at Moundsville, but we never got a chance to come back here before he died.

I’ve done more new things in the last three and a half years than I have in my entire life combined, I do believe. I’ve always heard of Oglebay Park in Wheeling and they put on a huge Festival of Lights at the holidays. Over 600 acres you drive through with animated light displays and trees galore. I’ve always wanted to go and since I’m leaving soon for Colorado, I decided to run up to see the spectacle and get my holiday month off to a great start!