I knew my mother could not be left alone for any length of time. She was terribly weak and had trouble getting up from the chair. She had fallen a few times trying to walk from room to room. I was keeping a vigil and wanted to be there to help her if she needed me.
After making sure she was comfortable, I quickly grabbed my jacket and ran the two blocks to Central Avenue. Loft’s Candy Store was on the corner. They sold homemade chocolates and a small selection of gifts. Something caught my eye as I approached the entrance to the store. In the window, looking at me from its perch on a display shelf, sat the goofiest ceramic monkey I had ever seen. It had a big, pink ball attached to its mouth, as if it had been chewing Bazooka gum and was trying very hard to blow a bubble.
I bought a quarter pound of Mom’s favorite chocolate-covered crackers, a box of thin mints for her to give to Dad and a box of chocolate-covered cherries, which they both enjoyed. But I still hadn’t bought something she could give to me. I asked the cashier if I could buy the monkey. She grinned and said, “Everyone comes into the store smiling because of that silly monkey, but no one has offered to take it home. Of course you can buy it.” The lady took great care as she blanketed my monkey in tissue, placed it in a white box and wrapped it in the same Loft’s paper that was used to wrap the candy.
When I got home, Mom was sleeping. Carefully, I arranged the gifts under the tree. Later that evening, when we opened them, the Bazooka bubble-blowing monkey made us all laugh. The most important thing was, the monkey made Mom laugh.
That Christmas Eve was the last time we were happy as a family. Mom died in January of her illness. Dad died in February of a broken heart (I was told), and life, as I knew it, was over.
For many years I was angry with Mom and Dad. I thought she had accepted her cancer without a fight. I blamed my father for giving up, checking out, not loving us enough to stick around. I couldn’t look at family photographs, fearful I might weaken the wall I’d built around myself to hide my pain from the world. I took pride in the fact that I never cried. That monkey sat on a shelf in my room for a few years but eventually it disappeared. Losing it was no great misfortune to me at the time, since it, too, had become a potent reminder of my loss.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of forty-two. I opted for the most aggressive treatment that was available. Throughout my illness, especially when suffering the nausea and fatigue associated with its side effects, I wanted my mother more than anything in the world. Vulnerable, a little girl again, I wanted the coolness of her hand as she’d touch my hot forehead to diagnose a fever. I remembered the way she’d held my long hair out of the way when I threw up, and how she’d sit on my bed when I was sick, softly stroking the side of my face. The wall I had built weakened and, for the first time, I dug through boxes of photos and allowed myself to remember. Those pictures seemed as if they belonged to another life, not mine, it was all so long ago. I smiled when I discovered a snapshot of the goofy monkey. The wall crumbled and the tears I had not been able to cry for so many years began to fall.
During my illness, I became determined to learn all that I could about the disease that had stolen my family and had returned to try to destroy me. I learned that at the time of my mom’s diagnosis she really didn’t have many choices. My anger melted away. Instead, I felt sad. Sad, because if I’d known more about cancer when I was nineteen, maybe I’d have been better able to understand. I experienced firsthand the fear she must have felt, and realized the extent of her love for me. Throughout her illness, her primary purpose had been to protect me and to allow me to remain a “kid” for as long as she could.
So here I am in Studebaker’s, killing time until the holiday season is behind me. As my friend holds up a tiny figurine of a sleeping cat, I notice, sitting on the floor, partially hidden, an exact duplicate of that goofy monkey, blowing its big, pink Bazooka-bubble-gum-bubble! I pick it up and begin to cry happy tears. I cradle the little monkey in my arms and carry it to the cashier. She gently blankets it in tissue, just like the lady in Loft’s did, so many years ago, bringing my life full circle and delivering my Christmas present from heaven.
~Ann M. Sheridan
The Missing Stocking
A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.
~Tenneva Jordan
Suddenly I felt my cheeks turn red with embarrassment. How could I have never noticed? Every Christmas my mother enjoyed creating special memories and traditions for her family. Mom loved Christmas—the shopping, baking, decorating, music, gifts... even the hustle and bustle the season brings. Her enthusiasm was contagious and that encouraged my brother, sister, and me to experience the joy and wonder of Christmas. Although Santa came to our home, we were taught that the real reason for the season was to celebrate the birth of our Messiah—Jesus Christ.
Many years have passed since I was a child. Yet I can still smell the aroma of Mom’s sugar cookies baking, as she prepared a special treat for her family and for Santa. These delicacies were a sure sign that Christmas Day was near.
On Christmas Eve my mother laid all our stockings under the beautifully decorated pine tree my father had picked out and cut down in the forest. Later, in the middle of the night, Santa filled the stockings.
The next morning we excitedly opened our gifts, leaving our Christmas stockings for last. Santa always stuffed our stockings full of tiny toys, trinkets, nuts, oranges, apples, and colorful hard candies in various shapes, sizes, and flavors.
In my twenties, I went Christmas shopping with a friend. She began looking for a small gift to place in her mother’s stocking.
“You fix a Christmas stocking for your mother?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “Every year I fill a stocking with little goodies and have it waiting for her on Christmas morning. I couldn’t bear for my mother to not have a Christmas stocking, especially since she prepares one for everyone else.”
That’s when I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment. I realized my mother had not had a Christmas stocking for as long as I remembered. And, even worse, no one had noticed her stocking was missing.
My sister and I determined to start a tradition of our own that year. Excited, we bought jewelry, candy, socks, and an orange. We placed them in a small, red stocking. Christmas morning we snuck it under the tree while Mom was busy preparing breakfast.
Eagerly we waited to see Mom’s reaction. She passed out everyone’s stockings; then noticed an extra one. She picked up the stocking and read the tag: “To Betty Ann—Love, Santa.”
Amazement crossed her face. “Is this stocking really for me?”
We smiled and nodded.
Tears glistened in Mom’s eyes. “It’s been so long... since I’ve had a Christmas stocking,” she said. “Thank you.”
Though I don’t remember the gifts I received that year, I have never forgotten how thrilled my mother was to receive a simple, red stocking. Seeing her reaction was the most precious gift of all. And once again, she taught me about the joy and wonder of Christmas... that it is indeed more blessed to give than to receive.
~Teresa Ann Maxwell
Ex’s and Oh’s
For the spirit of Christmas fulfils the greatest hunger of mankind.
~Loring A. Schuler
Love is a funny thing, isn’t it? It comes in all shapes and sizes, and you just never know when or where you’re going to find it. Sometimes you know exactly where to find it; sometimes it finds you, grabbing hold of your lapels and shaking some sense back into your ever-hardening heart. And then there are times when you find that love was right there where you left it—not lost, really—like your car keys or the husband you divorced nine years ago, a man you had one partial life and two beautiful children with.
It was Christmas Day 2008 when I unexpectedly found love again. Oh, it wasn’t the romantic kind of love that can go from inferno to fizzle in sixty seconds; it was the old, familiar kind
—the slow burn—that can only happen between two people who once shared a life, the kind of love that can only happen between those same two people who shared the experience of giving life to two beautiful children. That’s the kind of love I’m talking about, and to be honest with you, I didn’t even see it coming.
He was just walking me to my car—Billy, that is, my ex-husband of nine years. I had just dropped our two teenage boys, Billy Boy and Alec, off at his house on Christmas morning. It’s been our tradition since the divorce. After powering down breakfast and rifling through stockings at my place, I pack up the car with my boys and a couple of armloads of Christmas booty and head over to their dad’s house, never bothering to change out of our pajamas.
It’s at his house that we exchange gifts and pleasantries and then—after a bundle of Christmas hugs and kisses from my kids—I head back home with empty arms to spend the rest of the day with my mother. Oh, I know; it’s not idyllic, but it’s as close as we can get, considering.
Over the past couple of years our little tradition has included the new woman in Billy’s life, Lisa. And even though I like her and she is good to my boys, it’s a little disturbing when you find yourself sharing your family with another woman—and on such a day as Christmas, too. But such is life when you’re a broken family. You learn to deal with it. I suppose it was a little harder on me this year after having just lost my job; I guess you could say that I was already feeling a little emotional, seemingly alone and left out in the cold as it was.
“Natalie, you know that I love you, right?” Billy whispered from out of the blue as we ambled toward my Jeep. His eyes unexpectedly welled up with tears as he—the consummate tough guy from Long Island—stood barefoot on that cold sidewalk in December in his green flannel pajamas, wearing his heart on his sleeve. “I will always love you.”
Apparently he was feeling a tad schmaltzy, too. I hadn’t heard the words “I love you” fall from his lips in a long while and even though I was completely touched by them, it was the tears in those sentimental green eyes of his that caught me off guard, those familiar eyes that brought back so many wonderful Christmas memories.
“I know,” I whispered, my heart catching in my throat, as I, too, stood outside in the early morning hours of that cold Christmas day in my red, snowman pajamas, tears welling up in my own green eyes. “I love you, too.”
It’s not quite the exchange one might come to expect between two ex-spouses with an ocean’s worth of water under the bridge. But before I knew it, we were locked in a long embrace, both of us weeping uncontrollably. What is it about Christmas that brings people together, temporarily lowering their defenses, those protective walls we build around our hearts?
It was as if—for just a moment—we were all alone, the two of us, held together by the warmth of what was and what is now our family, either that or by the static cling from our flannel pajamas. Who could tell? In any case, we were encapsulated in a proverbial snow-globe moment and we were both a little shaken. Meanwhile, deep down inside—in places I don’t like to talk about at parties—I knew that Lisa and the boys were waiting inside for him; she would be making breakfast and Christmas memories all her own with my family—my children. That’s not always an easy pill to swallow, even though I know in my heart I wouldn’t change a thing—even if I could.
“We have two great kids together, Nat, and I wouldn’t have wanted to take this walk with anyone but you,” Billy breathed, giving me that same sideways (deliberate) grin that both my boys give me when they really mean something.
“Ditto,” I smiled back.
I reached up onto my tiptoes, my arms squeezing evermore tightly around his neck, hot tears streaming down my cool cheeks and into the thickness of his shoulder. His arms tightened around me, too. And with all the love and sentimentality that Christmas brings with it, as well as all of the love and sentimentality that balls up between two people over the course of eighteen years, Billy and I gave each other a warm peck on the lips and wished each other a happy Christmas.
And it was then—as he tucked me into my car, shutting the door behind me—that I realized that even though life has a way of breaking our hearts—and even breaking apart our families at times—love is never really lost. In fact it can be found in some of the simplest of places—many of them locked tight in those Christmas memories both old and new.
~Natalie June Reilly
My Special Christmas Doll
Pleasure is the flower that passes; remembrance, the lasting perfume.
~Jean de Boufflers
A special doll named Katherine lives in my four-year-old granddaughter’s room. The doll perches on the window seat, arms out and head cocked a bit. Muted red polish covers her fingernails, and a few of her fingers and toes are chipped. The doll’s dark blond hair could use a bit of attention, for it looks limp and badly in need of a stylist.
“This was my mommy’s doll,” Jordan tells me.
I pick up the doll, smooth the flower-print flannel gown she wears. “A long time ago, she belonged to me.” I give Katherine a little hug and place her on the window seat again.
Jordan grasps my hand. “I know that, Grandma. Will you tell me about her?”
I scoop Jordan into my arms. “Time for bed now, but maybe tomorrow we’ll talk about Katherine.” I tuck her into bed and kiss her twice.
Later that evening, I sip a cup of tea and think about the doll Santa brought me more than sixty years ago. The decades slip away and I am six years old again. My parents and little brother are asleep, still snuggled under warm comforters, but I’m tip-toeing down the hallway early on Christmas morning. It’s so quiet and very dark in the hallway, but I know my destination and continue on.
When I reach the living room, the early morning light filters through the windows. I kneel in front of the decorated Christmas tree, and a little shiver runs up my spine. It’s cold in our apartment, but the shiver comes from what I spy next to the gaily-wrapped packages. Santa left me a beautiful doll looking very much like Shirley Temple. She’s dressed in a bridal gown made of a snowy, gossamer material. Tiny satin rosettes run from waist to hem, and lace adorns the neckline and sleeves. The matching veil, trimmed in lace, surrounds her head like a billowy cloud. A white nightgown and soft blue robe lie beside her. It’s the kind seen only in the movies. So pretty! Her dark blond hair curls to perfection, and her eyes appear to glow. I inch as close as I dare, for I know I should not touch her yet, not until Mommy and Daddy wake up. For now, the anticipation of holding her seems to be enough. I name her Katherine while I wait for my family to wake up.
I played with Katherine for many years, then saved her in hopes I might pass my special doll to a daughter someday. My daughter, Karen, loved the doll too, even though she no longer had the original clothes. Once again, Katherine made a little girl happy. Karen secreted the doll away in hopes that she, too, could pass her on to her own child someday. Now, Karen’s daughter, Jordan, is the keeper of the doll. Though a bit tattered, Katherine’s smile is just as sweet, and her blue eyes still appear to shine. Even her wilted curls are precious to me and to Karen.
I think one day Jordan will feel the same, for she is our special family doll and always will be. I will tell my granddaughter about the Christmas I found Katherine under the tree. This one cherished doll holds generations of my family within her heart. I hope Jordan will have a daughter one day so that this chain of love might continue.
~Nancy Julien Kopp
It’s the Size of Your Love
What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories.
~George Eliot
Our grown-up sons and their families have always filled our holidays with delight, but one Christmas stands out above all the others. After Christmas Eve dinner and the opening of gifts we relaxed with full tummies in front of the crackling fire. The long legs of the men in my household sprawled across the carpet.
; “Mom and Dad,” Lane, our youngest son, began, “it’s so good to be back home. I want you to know what you mean to me. I had such a happy childhood here. Remember our cat, Old Tom, and how we all teased him?”
“Yeah,” Lance added. “Remember when Mark and I got in a paint fight and got white paint all over the brick wall?”
“It’s still there too,” their daddy interrupts.
“Remember the tricks we did with Chow and the dish towel?” Mark replies. “And we’ll never forget the miles you drove to see us play ball.”
“Or all the rock hunting trips and picnics,” the boys reminisced.
They set me up every time. I think they like to see me cry.
In the wee hours of the night, our house becomes strangely quiet again. Those little boys who grew up so quickly were back in their own beds. The same familiar refrain from previous years echoed from grandchildren: “Good night, Mommy. Good night, Daddy. I love you.”
The same clock chimed its soothing sounds, blessing me that everyone had come home once more. Grandchildren slept in sleeping bags on the floor. People snored all over the place.
The next morning brought the chaos of taking turns for showers, drying hair and doing laundry. The dining room held “shoulder to shoulder” chairs but hungry people didn’t seem to mind.
On Sunday morning everyone flew around getting ready for church. I cooked breakfast in shifts and found myself apologizing for the lack of room to my daughter-in-law Connie. Her reply is something I will hold in my heart forever: “It isn’t the size of your house. It’s the size of your love.”
Her statement reminded me what family is all about, especially at Christmas.
Several days later my beloved ones started packing to go home. I resolved not to cry. Who am I kidding? It’s the love I have that brings the tears. I watched them drive away as far as I could see. My husband took me in his arms as we waved goodbye.
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Christmas Magic Page 4
