Memories of Christmas Past
Author: Badgergater
E-mail: [email protected]
Season: 8
Episode: None
Spoilers: None
Category: Holiday drama
Pairing: None, but Jack was married to Sara
Warnings: Sad
Rating: PG
Summary: Jack remembers bittersweet Christmas's past
Disclaimer: I don't own SG-1
Author's Pledge: All Badgergater fics are fairly and accurately rated as to content, pairing and category. I believe in giving the potential reader the honest facts about a fic.
Author's Note: Holiday greetings to all of you, my readers. This fic, like all I write, are a gift to you (well, okay, first they're a gift to me, since I write what I'd like to see on screen<G>). As always, a special thank you to Sis, Margo, Sid, and everyone who sends feedback.
Due to circumstances, this fic is unbeta-ed, so all errors are truly mine.<G>
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It would be so much easier, if I didn't remember how Christmas used to be.
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Six years old, still believing in Santa Claus. Lying wide awake in my upstairs bedroom, wondering if Santa was forgiving enough to bring me the bike I desperately wanted, the one in the window at O'Herlihy's Hardware over on Wacker Drive. Blue with chrome wheels and shiny red reflectors. Man, if I got that bike, I bet I could pedal it a hundred miles an hour.
It was the worst Christmas of my life, because I got only clothes and a baseball that year. I thought Santa hated me.
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Twelve years old, too old for Christmas, but I loved going up to Grandma and Grandpa's cabin in Minnesota. Scarfing down piece after piece of Grandma's pumpkin pies until I thought I would be sick. Skating on the pond with Grandpa, who could still move pretty good for an old geezer. Practicing slap shots and defensive moves and listening to all his stories about the 'good old days.'
The year I was thirteen, Grandpa died, and Grandma was heartbroken. All the joy was gone out of the day. It changed Christmas for the rest of my life.
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Sixteen years old, full of myself, and totally consumed with teenage angst. Wondering if Colleen would give me what I wanted for Christmas, and it was a hell of a lot more than the chaste little kiss I'd gotten on my birthday. So, yeah, I hadn't been able to persuade her to let me get past first base, but holy buckets, what a Christmas present a home run would be.
It was the worst Christmas of my life, because I didn't get to discover the wonders of Colleen. The French kiss was nice, though, but it was still the most frustrating Christmas of my life. Teenage hormones. Oiy.
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Eighteen years old, my first Christmas away from home, at the Academy, studying desperately so I wouldn't fall behind. Failure was not an option, because failure meant I'd never get to fly.
It was the worst Christmas of my life, because I thought my dream was slipping through my fingers.
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Twenty-two years old, my first Christmas overseas, and I have to admit I really don't remember much about it. There was that big party on Christmas Eve, in the BOQ, and prodigious amounts of alcohol were consumed by all of us stuck so far away from home. I think I spent most of Christmas Day in the john, puking.
It was the worst Christmas of my life, or at least, the sickest.
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Twenty-six years old, and believing in love. Wishing I'd had more money to spend to buy Sara something better, and hoping she'd understand it was the best I could afford. The diamonds were small, but they were real.
It was the most anxiety filled Christmas of my life, but in the end, it turned out just fine. Sara loved her gift, and, most amazing of all, she loved me.
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Thirty-four years old, and more excited about Christmas than I'd ever been in my whole life. So, yeah, Charlie wouldn't be ready for the hockey stick and the baseball glove I'd bought him for, well, okay, years, many years, but a Dad could dream, couldn't he? Wasn't that what fatherhood, and Christmas, was all about?
It was the most promising Christmas of my life.
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Thirty-seven years old, and up all night, putting together Charlie's new bike. Damn, I could fly an F-15 and blow up buildings and navigate my way anywhere in the world, but putting together a kid's bicycle was beyond me. Thank God for Sara's level head. In the end, though, it was the most satisfying Christmas of my life, to see the look on Charlie's face when he got the present he wanted. I felt like I was six years old all over again.
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Thirty-eight years old, and desperately hoping, right up until the last minute, that somehow I'd get home to my family for Christmas. Believing it above all else, because I missed them so much. And when I didn't get there, trying to make a lousy phone call compensate for what I was missing. It wasn't enough. I can still hear Sara, bravely trying to keep the sadness out of her voice, and me doing the same. I could picture all that I was missing.
It was the loneliest Christmas of my life, until the one that came after.
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Thirty-nine years old, and not even knowing for sure if it was Christmas. Hoping maybe it wasn't because it meant I'd been in that hellhole for an awfully long time. Like forever. Not even sure I believed Christmas and home and my family still existed.
It was the worst Christmas of my life, and I couldn't imagine anything more horrible, until the one that came just four years after.
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Forty-three years old and dead inside. Christmas. How could the world go on and have Christmas without my kid? To me, it was just another day of agony, of stifling silence, of the absence of joy and laughter, of two broken hearted people living in the same house, and dwelling worlds apart. There was no tree, no lights, no presents, only memories too painful to contemplate. Only despair and guilt and the yawning chasm of grief, wounds still so fresh they were raw and bleeding.
It was the darkest, emptiest, loneliest, saddest, worst Christmas of my life. It still is, and it always will be.
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Somewhere, in the string of dark days that followed after, year on year, new light began to flicker. The heart, once broken, remains scarred and battered, damaged, never to be the same, but healed enough to go on. My team, Cassie, the General, Kayla and Tessa, new people became part of my life, filled some of the emptiness.
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And then, somewhere, somehow, sometime when I wasn't looking, the memories returned. I suppose it had something to do with the passage of time, because even the sharpest pain grows dimmer and duller and more bearable. I think it had a lot to do with growing older, and realizing that no one's life is as perfect as it seems. Maybe it came with the realization that sorrow is a part of life we have to accept, deal with, and move past, because we can't go back, no matter how much we want to reclaim the past. The times we once lived in come and go, as do the people we love. Life changes, and changes us. Christmases past didn't look so bleak, not even the worst of them. Okay, except for a couple, and I don't think I have to point those out to anyone. I guess I've learned to remember the good, and while not forget, at least, gloss over the worst of it.
My house is still empty.
My heart is still dark with an achingly barren spot that will never be filled.
But now, memories are my gifts, memories of Charlie's laughter and Sara's smiles; Grandma's good food and Grandpa's hearty laugh; Mom and Dad doing their best when money was tight; of Colleen and I finally... oops, I'm not the kind of guy to kiss and tell.
Bikes and pie and being far from home no longer matter.
Christmas, I have learned, is something you carry around inside you.
Remembering how Christmas used to be, it gets me through the day.
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