My New Favorite (Made-Up) Word

Last night my hubby and I watched a Christmas movie (I know, it’s the middle of February – so?!??!) we hadn’t ever seen before.  I had watched about the last 3/4 of it before hubby came in and watched the last 1/2 of it with me, so neither of us had seen the whole thing.  When it came on again later in the evening, we chose to watch the beginning of it, then ended up watching the whole thing through.  We loved it for several reasons:

1. It was snowy throughout the entire movie.  And I love snow.
2. It had great background music, and played the Little Drummer Boy more than once, which is my hubby’s favorite holiday song.
3. It portrayed family issues without the fakey-syrupy-happy-all-the-time phoniness; which, for me, means it was about a normal dysfunctional family.
4. It ended with the important stuff being exalted – they loved one another.
5. And lastly, the young couple who fall in love with each other in the movie reminded us of us – the girl was kinda crazy and rebellious, and the guy was an upstanding, all-American conservative Christian!

This young couple meets in the airport, where flights have been delayed because of weather, and start chatting about their destinations, families and the holidays.  They are both from “real” families; ie: the kind who fight, break up, make up, reunite, say ugly things, repent, kiss, hug and move on…….or not.  The girl’s family, though, is in crisis.  But she feels like she is the only person in the family who has problems.  As she is telling her new friend about how her parent’s marriage “imploded” when she and her siblings started moving out, she begins to describe to him “the look” her mother gives her every time she goes home; that look of disappointment, even though her mother is smiling and telling her daughter at the same time she is giving her “the look” that she is not disappointed in her.

She goes on to describe the awful anticipation she feels the days leading up to going home for the holidays; the anticipation of receiving “the look”.  She couldn’t decide what was worse – getting “the look” that told her she was a disappointment to her parents, or the anticipation of going home and getting “the look”.

She called this dreadful state of being “anticipointment“.   Anticipating being a disappointment.

Oh, how I love language and all its idiosyncrasies.  And I love it when someone puts words together, or makes up a new word, to describe how I feel, even if my circumstances don’t entirely relate to how they are using the word.

In the case of this new word – anticipointment – I interpret it like this: “anticipating disappointment”.

The 25th of next month my family and I will “celebrate” what would have been our son’s and brother’s 29th birthday.

Anticipointment.

That is how I feel as that date approaches.

We won’t let the date pass without some sort of acknowledgement.  I’ve always, for 33 years now, either given a party or a family dinner for each of my children’s birthdays.  For the past 3 years, we’ve done the same for our son who now resides in heaven.  But this year, I don’t know what I want to do.  Three and a half years without a beloved son is not long enough, it seems, to figure these things out.

Anticipointment.

That is how I feel now every holiday, birthday, anniversary and family gathering.

Anticipointment.

Sometimes that is how I feel when I visit his grave at the cemetery.

I anticipate seeing “him” when I get there.  But I know I will not.

Anticipointment.

I think this might be one of my new favorite words to describe some of my feelings along this road of grieving the loss of my 25-year-old son.

As I write about this fun new word, I’m thinking about another blog post I’m working on about hope.  I am not without hope, even as I anticipate the disappointment that comes with having to celebrate my son’s birthday without him here.

“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uniformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.  For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.  According to the Lord’s Word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  And so we will be with the Lord forever.  Therefore encourage one another with these words.”  1 Thessalonians 4:13-18