Alone with Memories for Christmas

"Hello, hello, hello," he said with sad, little smiles, as if greeting every face that he imagined seeing. "Hello, hello, hello. I see you're all here," he said acknowledging the imagined presence of friends and family. "Thank you for coming. It's so nice to see you all again," he said with a sincere smile.

He couldn't help but feel a bit like Charles Dickens' character, Ebanezer Scrooge, from Christmas past, in A Christmas Carol. Even though he thought they were all there, even though he knew he was alone and there was no one present and nothing there but shadows, as a way to confront his guilt and sadness head on, he acknowledged his shadowy faces by playing along with whatever images his subconscious placed before him. No doubt, they were there for a reason and he figured it was better to acknowledge them than to deny their presence by ignoring them.

Alone but for those that he imagined were present in his room, it was now that he finally understood the cliché, the quiet was deafening, because the sad silence of having no one there visiting him interfered with the focused concentration of his thoughts. Perhaps, the reason why he imagined that everyone he knew was there was because no one was and he missed them all so very much. Yet, strangely enough, as if they were all there now, he heard their voices.

There were always voices that he heard in his head and, as the years passed, it became so impossibly more difficult to place the voice with the face. Sometimes unable to distinguish if the voices were real or not, the voices that he heard from his past always haunted him in the present. Who are all these people that once sounded and looked so familiar? Alone with his bad self and bothered by his troubled mind, he couldn't even concentrate enough to open the photograph album he held in his hands and focus long enough to look at some old pictures. For sure, he needed another sip of his drink to quell his nerves and stop his hands from shaking.

Hearing himself swallowing, the warm liquor heated his chest and momentarily stopped his shaking and quaking. It was so quiet that he could hear his heart beating in his chest. It was so quiet that he could hear all the voices of all the people he forgot about then and suddenly remembered now, as if they were all truly here in the room with him. In a raucous roar with them all talking at the same time, as if they were surely all there in the room with him, when he closed his eyes, as if merely turning off the light, he hushed their voices and they disappeared. Then, sadly alone again, it was so quiet again that, for the first time, he felt so lost and so lonely by the stark realization that he had no one that cared enough about him to call him or to see how he was doing on Christmas that he opened his eyes again. Living and sharing his life with ghosts from the past was much better than living his life alone.

Worse, devoid of bitterness and self-pity, he had no one to blame but himself. Those people that he thought he didn't need then, he needed now. Those people he wished were gone from his life then, he wished they were here now. No doubt having something to do with his drinking and philandering that he did so long ago in his past, hoping that it wasn't because he was a black man in a white man's world, for the life of him, he couldn't remember why he was mad at them or why they were mad at him. Not wanting to be alone, never wanting to be alone, all that he knew was that he was alone now and he missed them.

Holding his scotch in one hand, as if afraid to let go, afraid his drink would leave him, disappear in thin air, as did everything and everyone else who left him, he was so timidly fearful of misplacing his drink in the way he constantly misplaced his car keys and his eyeglasses. Was he losing his mind? Is this how Alzheimer's feels, lucid one second and lost within yourself the next?

He took a long sip of his drink and finished the contents of the glass, before pouring himself another and, hoping to take the edge off, he poured himself a double this time. Maybe it would help, if he got good and drunk. Maybe it would help, if he forced himself not to remember. Maybe it would help, if he suddenly had amnesia or really did have Alzheimer's disease. If having Alzheimer's would make him forget all of those faces and not hear all those voices that haunted him every day and every night in his dreams, then he'd welcomed the disease.

No doubt, the alcohol relaxed him from the madness of his days of despair and from the lunacy of a life that plagued and now haunted him from his first relationship to his last. After having dated so many white women, more white women than he could even remember, before marrying two of them, he didn't know why he had the need to continue to have so many affairs, even after being married to two, beautiful, blonde, busty, white women. He wondered where all of those women that he so desired enough to cheat on his wives with then were now. Knowing full well that they wouldn't, he wondered if they looked as good now as they did then, when he had sex with them so many years ago. Glad that he never ran into any of them again, especially when with one of his wives, it was better remembering how they used to look than ruining his fantasy of yesterday with the reality of how they look today.

With two children from each marriage that gave him seven grandchildren, he should have a houseful of children opening Christmas presents, but he didn't. With many more friends than family, he should have his family making him breakfast and his friends stopping by for a cup of coffee or for a drink to wish him a Merry Christmas, but he didn't have that either. Sadly, he had no one there to celebrate the holiday with him. Just not the same celebrating the holiday alone, the one day that he should be surrounded by family and friends, he was alone on Christmas day, of all days.

"Merry Christmas to me," he said raising his glass in toast of no one.

With a home fully decorated for the holidays that always had a big holiday wreath on an open door for friends and for family, and with a huge collection of Christmas cards that were prominently displayed throughout the house downstairs every year, his house was devoid of holiday decorations now. Maybe because he stopped sending them, no one even thought enough of him to send him a Christmas card. He shouldn't be all alone for Christmas now, as he was for Thanksgiving, but he was. He couldn't even remember what he ate that holiday or if he ate at all. He couldn't even remember the last time he had a Christmas tree. With no one there to celebrate the holiday with him, just as there was no reason for him to cook a big Thanksgivings Day dinner then, there was no reason to have a Christmas tree now. He tried decorating a tree the first year he was alone but, as if the ornaments were haunted, too, with every ornament saving a special, sad memory, decorating the tree was more a lesson in torture than it was in pleasure.

Now that he's experienced too many of holidays alone, special occasions weren't the same without family and friends. Sadly, now, holidays are just another day, when alone and lonely. For sure, after all he did to help his friends in bad times, if not surrounded by relatives for one reason or another, he should at least be surrounded by friends. Only, the closeness of friends and the relationships of friendships loses much in the translation, when he stopped going out to visit them and when he stopped inviting them to his home. Having taken everyone for granted, when his life was going so well, along with the personal visits, eventually the telephone calls and the e-mails stopped, too. Having taken the time to learn how to Twitter but, without having anyone to Twitter, no one Twittered him. Other than to call someone when there was an emergency, he didn't even know why he had a cell phone.

As if his account had been terminated, no one visited his Facebook page in years. No one wrote anything on his wall. When others boasted of all the Facebook friends they had, he had none. Angry with hurt, he pulled his Facebook page and closed his account. Unfortunately, that action spited no one but himself. Now, with his cyber link to humanity closed, he only felt more isolated. With him feeling so abandoned, but for the memories of the good times that he had and the laughter he once shared, as a sad albeit realistic end, with all the food and booze he put out, he wished he had all that money he wasted for their entertainment.

"Where'd everyone go? Why is it so damn quiet? Why am I so lonely and so alone? What did I do that was so wrong to make everyone hate me and abandon me? Hello?" He looked around the room. "Hello? Is there anyone here? Hello? I need someone to talk to and someone to give me a hug. I need a friend to tell me that everything will be alright," he thought to himself without verbalizing any of it this time.

He divorced his wives, alienated his children, and lost contact with his relatives and friends. Always, the end of one relationship started another. Always, as if someone had died, the end of one relationship took him time to grieve over the death of it. Only, the new relationship was never as large and as loving as the old one lost. Always, the end of one relationship cut ties to those mutual friends he shared with his ex-wife. Always, he had to make new friends, until he was just too damn tired to care and to take the time to develop what warranted as a friendship. No longer could he give the effort to start all over again with new people in his life, people who would, one day, no doubt, abandon him, too.

Now, he just didn't care, he told himself, when he thought that he did. Everything he built brick by brick, when he was younger, with everything he needed put in place that gave him a happy home and a rich life, somehow was dismantled and destroyed brick by brick, as he grew older. A side effect of living life large, blindsided by the jealousy of others less fortunate, he was too deterred with living his life to see that his life, as he knew it, was ending. While riding the high of the drug alcohol and excited by the sex, he never saw the loneliness coming, until it was too late and already there.

When he was younger, he never thought he'd be alone when he was older, as he was so alone now. When he was younger, he figured his life would be the same when he was older, only better, in the way that Jimmy's Stewart's life was, when he played George Bailey opposite Donna Reed's character, Mary Hatch, in It's a Wonderful Life. Surrounded by old, close, and trusted friends, imagining he'd live the good life retired, he figured he'd have his wife by his side and his children regularly visiting with his grandchildren, too.

Unfortunately, he never stoked the fires to maintain the heat of his relationships. Regrettably, instead of alcohol and sex, he now knew too late that family and friends are what kept him entertained and busy, that is, when he had family and friends in his life, who cared enough about him to do that. Even though he should have, he never saw this lonely day coming, but it did and here it was. Now, with the promise of living a good life gone, Michael faced the reality of living the rest of his days alone and lonely. He wrestled with the reality of becoming the mean and miserable man his father had become, when Michael finally had enough of him and abandoned him, too, in the way that everyone has abandoned him now.

Unable to feel the sad depression that made a whiskey bottle his father's only friend, he finally understood what it must have been like for his Dad and he wished he could have helped him then, in the way that he wished someone would reach out and help him now. What comes around goes around. Realizing now that the money he had then bought many of his friendships and cemented his family relationships, he was depressed, despondent, and disillusioned that the love of money superseded the love of people.

"Merry Christmas to me," he said again holding up his drink in toast of no one but himself, while thinking that he was turning into his father.

If not friends, at least he still had money but he'd trade whatever money he had to have his family and friends back in his life. Now with no one there but voices and shadows of faces to interrupt his thoughts, never having the time before and/or taking the time now to look at it, he remembered putting this personal photograph album that he now held aside. Vaguely, he remembered briefly scanning the pages, when he first received the album, so long ago. How many years ago, he didn't even know. He truly had forgotten he even had it, until now, when he discovered it in the back of the closet, while looking for something else, he remembered.

Too busy living life, he was having better days to not need the warmth of the memories hidden within. For sure, these memories weren't as important to him then, as they were now. Now, the photograph album was his last lifeline, the thread that grounded him, and the support that saved him from the lunacy of feeling forgotten. The pictures were his evidence, his documented and detailed proof that he had once lived life large, instead of hiding himself in this room.

Contained within, a permanent record of his life, these were his official, private moments frozen in time with the mere click of a camera lens. After everyone and everything else was gone, he was grateful for these photos. Yet, with a feeling of dread, as if it was Pandora's box, afraid to open it, afraid of what memories he'd unleash and what emotions he'd surely feel, he paused before opening the book. As if tracing the features of one of his children with his finger, as if pushing back a strand of their blonde, silky hair, as he watched them sleep so innocently, he slowly ran his fingers over the soft, leather cover, before opening the page that he truly didn't remember turning until now.

"Someone surely went through a lot of trouble to amass all of these photos in honor of me," he said looking up at all the faces that he imagined were there from the shadows that his little light cast upon his walls. "Someone truly loved me to go through all of this trouble," he said nodding his head. His eyes welled up with water remembering all of those people, wives, girlfriends, lovers, friends, family, his children, and his grandchildren, who once loved him, as he'll always love them.

Now, but for the memories he had from these photographs, the people behind them were all gone. He had no one to blame for the loss of them but himself. Other than to blame time, he had no excuse. When his life was too busy with work, too busy drinking and cheating, he never had enough time for those who truly loved him. Then, just when he pulled himself out of the mad, daily rush, just when he took a moment to relax and took a breath to reflect, he watched the seconds slowly tick by, tick, tick, tick, tick. Constantly, continually, he heard the tick, tick, ticking of time, his time. What he thought ticked by so slowly in his youth, now, in a blink of an eye, ten years, twenty years, thirty years passed and all the things he thought he did yesterday and all the things he said he'd do tomorrow were things he did forty years ago and things that he now would never have enough time to do.

Where did the time go? Either too busy or too drunk, he wasn't present during all that time, was he? With no second chance to go back and correct his mistakes, his time was now nearly over. With no certainty of the future, all he has left of his time on Earth was the past and his memories associated with this photograph album.

For a man who thought he was living life large with a loving wife, a beautiful home, and two new cars, it came to a crashing end, when he had one too many affairs. Then, when he divorced his first wife to marry his second wife, he thought his life was perfect again with a loving wife, a beautiful house, and two new cars. Four children and seven grandchildren should guarantee him a place in someone's heart. Yet, just as there was no one here on his birthday, on Thanksgiving, and now on Christmas day, there was no one here to testify that he was loved and needed. If he was anything, he was forgotten and despised. If he was anything, he was sorry for all the wrongs he had done. As he harbored no hate for anyone, it hurt his heart for him to think that his friends and family hated him.

Sadly, he didn't appreciate the effort of those who made the photo album, until now. Unbelievably, he didn't appreciate these photographs and these forgotten memories until now. As if he was a dying man from lack of food and water, these memories of his life past was the food and the water that he needed to nourish him and return him to life. Reveling in the past, a time before he dirtied his air with drunkenness and sexual affairs, surrounded by people who truly loved him, the past had clean air for him to breathe. Putting aside all the bad and despicable things he had done and forgetting, for a moment, all the people he had hurt, he needed to relive the memories that were within this album to remember and to continue living his life.

Thinking the book came from the back of his closet, where this photo album came from, he really didn't know. He couldn't remember. Magically, as if from out of nowhere, this album just appeared and was there sitting on his lap, when he needed it the most. Certainly, as he'd never even do this for himself, it was, no doubt, a gift from someone, but who? His wife? Which one? His children? Which ones? He didn't know. Sadly, he should know who loved him enough to give him this thoughtful of a gift, but he couldn't remember.

With all of the material things he had accumulated in life, the money, the houses, the furniture, the jewels, the watches, the cars, the clothes, the toys, and all the things that he thought he cherished and needed, now for him to be left with nothing but this photograph album was a sad joke that someone played on him. It was as if, by looking through the photographs, he graphically needed to see what was of real importance to him in his life. As if saved in a time capsule, he realized now that he didn't need anything other than these pictures that were captured on film. He didn't need anything other than the memories that were associated with these photos and contained within this album. With many of them dead and forgotten, as he would be one day soon, too, if only he had the people behind the pictures still in his daily existence, his life would be complete.

"I get it. I finally get it," he said to himself, as if the sudden clarity of thought was an epiphany and his eureka. "I understand that I wasted my life on meaningless things and lost out on all the truly important things in life."

He knew now that there was nothing more important to him than this photograph album. He knew now that there was nothing that was manufactured in America, handmade in Italy, engineered in Germany, and/or mass produced in China that meant more to him than what he now held in his hands. It was the memories behind these photographs that mattered to him more than money, more than mere things, and more than anything else. Only, too late, he had already missed out on so much, too much of his life. Seemingly, he had everything before and truly, he had nothing now, but for this photograph album.

He opened the cover and the first picture was a black and white photograph of his mother and father holding him as a baby. If only he somehow knew then all that he knew now, he would have made the changes to his life that would have guaranteed him not being so alone today. If only he heeded this photograph, as a symbol of how he should have lived his life with true love, instead of by random sex, he would have been a happier man. Yet, not having learned the lesson from his father, like father like son, his father was a drinker and a philanderer, too, and ended up alone, just as he is now. If only he could have a second chance to live his life over again, as the ghost of Christmas past gave Scrooge a second chance to amend all that he did wrong, he surely wouldn't be sitting here now looking at a mere photograph album. He'd be living life large and, no doubt, happier surrounded by his family and friends.