The air was crisp with the first real blast of cold here in the Hudson Valley. It was the end of a long day of Christmas shopping. We were each of us “tuckered out” and ready for a good dinner and a quiet evening together. Erik was driving and the girls were in the backseat. The night sky was a rich black and when I looked out the car window I realized that we were beneath a cheddar moon.
Mom would have loved that moon, I thought to myself. My heart stung yet the thought warmed me. How many times had we sat together looking into the night sky at that very same moon?? Too many times to mention, I think. “It’s made of cheese,” she’d tell me. “Isn’t,” I’d reply. Mom would laugh and so would I. We’d sit and watch the moon glide lazily across the sky. We’d sit until the mosquitoes made us go inside. Sweet memories and happy times I thought to myself.
Just a few days before, I’d received a call from my Aunt. “Mom’s gone,” she said. My heart sank and the words resounded in my head. Mom…my Mom was gone. A million memories and yet, not near enough.
How do you sum up a life?? How do you put a million memories into words?? The memories become like threads in a great tapestry, weaving in and out. The colors mingle and blend into the next scene. My Mom’s tapestry turns into my own because my memories are tied to hers. I suppose that’s the best way to sum up a life…you continue with your own and honor the one that’s left.
A first Christmas without my Mom is a bittersweet thing. Alzheimer’s had taken so much from her in a short space of time and had replaced a focused mind with chaos and confusion. I could not wish her back to such pain. Yet, I miss her just the same.
I looked at Mom’s photo and said to Erik that this was going to be the first Christmas without Mom being at least in a place where I knew where she was. He smiled. “She IS somewhere. She’s with your Papa.” I smiled and cried at the same time. I could picture them putting up a tree together for the first time in a very long time. I pictured the conversation in my mind.
“Alvin, the lights aren’t even.”
“I’m out of practice Lily. If you’d come sooner…”
“Alvin!”
“All I’m saying is I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Oh Alvin, you’re full of beans.”
“That’s why you love me.”
Papa smiles here and it occurs to me that they have new memories to make. This is the point where their conversation ends in my mind. Pleased in the knowledge that they’re together I thank G-d for my Erik and his good heart; and his gentle reminder that Mom is now with Papa once more.
“What’s for dinner??” asks Cassandra. The moon will have to wait. There are other pressing matters to tend to. Now this is one of those questions that’s right up there with “Are we there yet??” and “Where are we going after this??” The way I see it children have no sense of mystery in their information bombarded lives anymore. It seems that even the minutest details of the evening meal have to be known. I decide that I like my Papa’s simpler approach. Dinner is what is served. Dessert is a privilege and manners are important.
The girls each have a chore that’s assigned to the dinner table. Rebecca is absolutely in charge of napkins, although sometimes she forgets. Cassandra is the table setter. She has discovered though that she can reach all four place settings if she sits in her chair. It seems to me that I learned that trick about her age too. I may share that secret with her someday. For now I’ll look aghast each time I catch her doing that and I’ll remind her to do it properly. For now I’ll hide the smile. At least I’ll try.
It’s only natural for us to turn our thoughts to things of home and childhood at this time of the year. Christmas is a time rich with memories. As a child I recall it as a time to visit with friends and neighbors. Dressed in good clothes which usually meant something uncomfortable. I would carry my slippers in a paper sack. Mom would always take “a little something” as a gift for the hostess and we’d sit and sample homemade delights such as Shortbread and Fruitcake and homemade fudge. There was always fresh brewed coffee for the men and usually tea for the ladies. “Us children” would always be treated to Coke in a bottle. Bliss. Now call me old-fashioned and odd, but I love fruitcake. It’s one of my favorite holiday treats. Erik thinks I’m bats. I know he does. I can’t help it Erik. It was one of my Mom’s favorites too. Now Erik and I differ on what fruitcake is. We were at the grocery store and he pointed at “something” and remarked that it was fruitcake. Well, it was a lot of cake with a few raisins. True fruitcake has just enough flour to hold the fruit together. I doubt this fact would impress Erik. He is not a fruitcake man.
Christmas dinner was very traditional at our home when I was growing up. We always had a big turkey and mashed potatoes, almost always squash and corn and mince pie for dessert. Sometimes my Mama and my brothers and sisters would be there; sometimes my Aunt, Ginger and my Uncle Larry and my cousins Alan and Kirk and Jill. The table was always full and Christmas was always a joyful time.
My Papa got me a sweet pixie as a gift one year. He hid it inside the tree and I remember coming down in the morning and finding it there. It wasn’t made of bone china and it didn’t cost a fortune. It was a silly little plastic pixie dressed in felt. It means the world to me and I love it more today than I did all those years ago. My pixie is like one of those tapestry threads. It’s a single memory; a golden one. It winds its way through my heart and mind connecting me to my Papa.
My Mom loved Christmastime. So did my Papa. As much as I would love them here with Erik and me tomorrow, in reality they are here in my heart. The memories that they gave to me will be here. I’ll find myself doing things tomorrow that my Mom used to do, just as she found herself one day doing things that her own Mother did. In this way she passed along memories from Grandma Law to my Mama and Ginger and me. Life’s circle is a glorious thing.
Tomorrow we make memories. Tomorrow we continue traditions.
This year Christmas Day coincides with the First Night of Chanukah. There will be double celebrations at our home.
So, as we gather around the Christmas tree tomorrow afternoon and then later as we light the first candle on the menorah my wish; my prayer for each of you is that you find yourself loved and steeped in holiday memories of your own.
Merry Christmas!! Happy Chanukah!!
Love and blessings from Butternut Grove,
Shelley
The Simple Pleasures
A Cheddar Moon in the Night Sky
Christmas Shopping
Getting Tuckered Out
Little Girls with Dinner Chores
Golden Threads in Life’s Tapestry
Dressing Up to Visit Neighbors
Coke in a Bottle!!
Fruitcake (Sorry Erik!!)
My Christmas Pixie
Turkey and Stuffing and Gravy
Memories of Mom and Papa
My Erik
Memories and Traditions
Last year, my dear friend Jan shared one of her special Christmas memories with us. I’m delighted to welcome Jan back again for what I hope is now a set yearly tradition. Thank you Jan!!
“Jan’s Christmas Memory 2005”
In my front closet, above the stacks of craft paraphernalia, old correspondence and snowsuits, is a soft pink shawl lightly printed over with a sky blue India pattern. It has long pink fringe like a camel's generous eyelashes. Now it is faded, worn and bleached in a laundry incident, but I occasionally drape it around me. Like me, with as many flaws hidden as possible, I wear it to go out to Church or dinner. I don't remember how much it cost; only that I have had it from the early 1980's, and one Christmas, when I wore it, I knew somehow life was never going to be the same.
That evening was promised to be snowy on the rural campus, where I stayed month in and month out, regardless of the season. It was a freezing, windswept college, on top of a drumlin hill in the eastern part of nowhere.
Sometimes, I worked the intercession at the college art museum, which I loved, cutting mats for etchings, hanging exhibitions, or sorting through hundreds of WWII patriotic posters, laboriously writing accession numbers in the bright basement for a catalog. After work, I retired to my rented dorm room, a tiny cold space with no phone, no fridge, and a bare yellow bulb overhead. If I had food to store, the best I could hope for was to set it between the screen and the glass on the sill of the big old window, framed with thick detailed oak lacquered over in dark brown, boiled turpentine stain.
If the museum had an opening reception, I would be very happy, because there would be lots of choice foods that I would try my best not to dive upon in my hunger.
I was a little afraid at night. I was the only person on my floor, and the ancient brick building was dim and echoed with my footsteps. The alternating floors housed basketball players too far from home to travel. They had set athletic schedules and so traveled (hey, they should get called for "traveling"!) in groups. If they weren't around, it was very lonely and still indeed.
One winter, just before I had to make my cold exile to this living situation, my friend from India invited me to Diwali, an Indian festival. My kind friend was a graduate student; we had worked together over the summer session painting dorm rooms in exchange for a free room and of course, pay. Diwali wasn't in December, but my friend told me that Indian students were reminded so much of family during our Christmas season, they organized the celebration to share a sense of community.
It was an honor to attend! I had no idea whatsoever what to wear, so I put on my best dress. It was my only dress. I thought the pink and blue India print shawl I bought the year before from a large cardboard carton in the Student Union would be good attire for the evening.
We had a wonderful time at Diwali as all the Indian families gathered around; their faces glowed with warmth and love. We sang songs, visited and talked and ate delicious, savory foods I knew must have taken all day to prepare, I had seen my friend's dorm mates cook these delicious dishes. The exotic aroma of cumin, coriander, curry and cardamom scented the air and moistened my mouth.
Afterward, I thanked my friend for the evening and we happily said we would meet up again soon. We parted on the sidewalk, and I turned to pick my way just up the hill. But something told me to keep on walking past my dorm. I wanted to tell my friends about the evening. The sun was setting over the country campus, a pale orange smear spreading across the undulating hills and buildings. I smelled musk and smoke, and as I puffed out a cone of vapor, the sky began sprinkling snow. I covered my hair with the shawl and walked as fast as I could on my high heeled shoes. I walked past the old dorm I was about to stay in, and toward a small dorm in front of the campus farm. The hill that night was bare of animals and the stubble from the corn rattled in the wind.
I knew there was a friend or two still in their rooms, and I wanted to wish them a Merry Christmas before the semester was through. That summer, my pal had lent his room to a young man named Steven, and the three of us had become friends. Steven was handsome and tall, and had the kind of easy going demeanor that naturally made friends. The three of us were art students, and while my friend and I were pretty good, Steven displayed a kind of talent that astounded student and faculty alike, and he was so affable, nobody could really be jealous.
When I ran up the stairs, pretty shawl covering my head and dusted over with snowflakes, I didn't know he would be there. I would have run twice as fast if I had. I liked being with him, there was something very right about it, but I wasn't telling myself anything about him. I had been hurt and hurt again.
I walked into my friend's open door, feeling the wonderful heat of the room. And as I was talking, from the periphery, I saw Steven stand up. As I turned toward him, he stopped and watched as I lowered the India shawl to my shoulders. His blue eyes widened and he stared. I remember the shock of joy that bolted through me. Could it be true?! If Diwali had been great, what measure could be used for this? I said, "Helloooo" as naturally as I could, knowing that the "rightness" of what I felt for him might actually be what I now saw in him? What a gift!
In a moment, Steven and I were talking about school and finals, not yet ready for more emotional revelations all at once I suppose, but the truth had sifted out like fresh snow, so clean and pure, oh happy day that I had such an gift as the certainty of something not even hoped for, the kind of love that is preordained, coming to life like the Christ child, radiant and true!
Every time I touch the shawl I think of that wonderful night, one of the first of all the highlights in our life together. Still there are friends from all over the world who seem to be as near as you and I in one small college dorm room, and it is Christmas time, a time for all to remember the joy of when love is discovered.
Merry Christmas and thank you for giving me a reason to remember this!
Jan is a wife to Steve and Mom to Ben and Jillian. She’s a wonderful friend and a talented writer. She lives in Connecticut.
