Putting Up the Lights on Remembrance Day

The power of family tradition.

November 11, in Canada, is Remembrance Day. It’s a day I go to the local cenotaph (war memorial), hear bagpipes — which I so love — and see veterans. On the walk home, a small plane formation always flies overhead.

It is also the day on which my family puts up our Christmas lights.

Holidays of Light

The holidays at this time of year — Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, Solstice — are all about light in so many ways. And in this, the darkest time of the year in the northern hemisphere, it is such a pleasure to put up those lights. And then to plug them in mid-afternoon, and let the days begin to settle, one after the other, until Christmas Day. We would leave them up right into January, shining the neighborhood and celebrating community.

A different year

Five years ago, my spouse was diagnosed with ALS. It was early summer when we were first told those letters of diagnosis, and by the fall, the disease had already progressed. The night before Remembrance Day was the first night he gave up going upstairs to bed, and instead, we slept in his workroom. In the middle of that night when he got up, he was disoriented with the move and fell.

It’s terrifying when a person with ALS falls; they cannot catch themselves. He had bruises and bumps and was anxious about it happening again. He had been very reluctant to begin to use the walker that some kindly person had loaned us, but after that he did.

Remembrance Day

The next day, I forgot entirely that it was Remembrance Day, and went to the small pharmacy by our local hospital, the one that carries medical equipment. I went to find a urinal, hoping to forego night-time trips to the bathroom. Of course, once I arrived, I could see the window blinds down and realized the store must be closed.

Still…there was a car outside…so I went to the door. Or maybe in desperation, I went to the door. I peered through the blinds and could see a woman working in the back room. My guess was that she’d come in to work on a closed day to get caught up. I know what that is like.

I knocked, wondering if she might come to the door. She did. She cracked it open. When I said, “My husband has ALS, and…” she didn’t wait for me to finish the sentence. She just asked, “What do you need?” I told her, and she let me in.

I went home with a urinal, teal-colored, and with a spill-proof funnel. “Those things look like a beekeeper's smoke machine,” was our doctor’s comment when I mentioned my purchase a couple of days later, which made me laugh.

Like using the walker, my husband resisted the equipment that reminded him of all the changes in his life. But after he’d used that teal thing once, he was convinced that it was quite superior to falling down in the middle of the night.

Life passing by…

Given the time of day, I was realizing that this was one November 11 that I was not going to make it to the cenotaph. At noon the planes flew over our house, marking the end of the ceremony. I was missing so much. My family was missing so much. Life swirled around us, holidays approached, and living with this disease had grounded us at home, in weekly, almost daily, changes.

Forget holidays; I could barely remember what day of the week it was.

In the afternoon I thought to call the fellow who had just finished tiling the new drive-in wheelchair shower that my brother and nephew had built for us, and ask him if he could please add a railing to the shower wall. We did not want any more falls, I told him.

He was there within an hour to put in a long L-shaped safety rail. As he was pulling on his jacket, job done, I asked how much I owed him. His answer: “Merry Christmas!” I almost cried right in front of him.

Take the first step

I realized then that chores were done, a neighbor had brought over a dinner meal oven-ready, and my husband was sound asleep in his big chair by the fireplace. It occurred to me to get out the box of lights, and at least have a look at them. I was learning that often it was best to get the first step of a task done; sometimes I might even be able to get to the second step, too.

Caregiving is such a busy and hard time; we needed some light. So I tested the bulbs; all in working order. I made myself a mug of coffee, found an extension cord, headed out, and brought around the ladder.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to string them along the front of the house, as we usually did, but I could decorate the tree right out front of the door. And I could open the door every now and then and make sure Marty was still comfortable and napping.

Add music

I put some Christmas music on my phone — a little saxophone holiday jazz — and sipped my coffee, and began to wrap the lights around the tree. Halfway through, I plugged them in so I could see the transformation from grey leafless tree limbs to shining homage to all the good things in life. And to the light in the darkness.

And stand back

I stood back from the shining tree when I was finished and sipped cold coffee. The sun was setting. It was time to go put that dinner in the oven. Time to face another ALS evening. But first, family would gather at the table to eat, and I could peek out the front window and see the tree. The neighborhood could see the tree. And the neighbors would begin to put up their lights, too, guaranteed; that’s how it always worked with us putting ours up on this day.

My sons came home from their days. “Mom! You put up the lights!”

“I did,” I said. “I remembered.” I could almost hear bagpipes playing.

Alison Acheson has written a memoir of her caregiving time: Dance Me to the End: Ten Months and Ten Days with ALS. Today — Nov. 9 — she helped her aging Momma put up her Christmas lights, and on Nov. 11, she’ll continue her own tradition.