When It's All Over

One of the times I like best is when it’s all over.

Not immediately. That’s when it’s mostly just a letdown. There’s the cleaning up still to do. My mother-in-law, Georgia Karr, used to look at the dirty dishes and the turkey carcass and the wads of ripped paper, the remains of two months of getting ready, and sigh, “There’s nothing as over as Christmas.”

But when the cleanup is over, or at least put off until “later,” there is that time of satisfaction—no more work, no more preparation… it’s over.

I felt that recently at the end of the Trick or Treat night of Halloween, as we played “Apples to Apples” with our daughters and grandchildren.

Grandson Joe had returned, in his “Grim Reaper” costume, from TT. Brigid is too old for T&T now, but just right for jumping up when the doorbell rings to go hand out treats to the little goblins and fairies who ring that bell. But then the designated TT period was over. The outside lights were turned off. We sat around the coffee table with leftover Milky Ways and tried to outguess one another in the A2A game. I’m proud to say that I won.

Halloween used to be “All Saints.” Most churches still celebrate “All Saints” in one way or another, remembering their members who died during the past year.

My name will be on that list one year. I think I’ll be satisfied—no more work, no more preparation—it’s over. I’ll be proud to say that I won.