As I search my brain for Christmas memories to share, it dawns on me that there are many blank spots in the canvas of holidays past that I don't really remember. My childhood is compartmentalized in my memory as Before Dad Died and After Dad Died. The memories of before my dad died have somehow edited themselves out to smooth out the scar of his absence. I remember bits and pieces, the really good stuff, while ignoring most of the bad.
Truthfully, Decembers kinda worked out to be bad for a couple of important years there around his death. My Grandma died December 11, 1978, which dawns on me now how hard it must have been for my mother to get through that Christmas I talked about yesterday. In 1979, my mother was ill, having to be hospitalized due to a hysterectomy. Needless to say, there wasn't a big celebration that year. My dad died December 19, 1980, which kind of brings me to my theme today.
Despite all the trials my family went through, many of my memories of the Christmases past were all mostly positive. My parents probably fought very hard for that to be so. There were presents under the tree. There was a tree. There was tradition, to make me feel safe and secure, which is probably why we as humans fight so very hard to hang onto it.
The last big Christmas we photographed was in 1981, which tested our traditions in an unexpected way. We had moved across town into a new house, a big four-bedroom that we shared with a coworker of my mom's, along with her two young kids, a 16-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son. I was twelve, so right in between.
I shared a room with the daughter, which was a brand new experience for me. Her name was Beth, and I both hated her and wanted to be her. She was pretty, and popular, and so damn cool it made me crazy. I had only recently begun to learn that I wasn't perfect, like my Daddy would have me believe. Other voices had filled the void he left, mostly peers at school. You know how that goes.
Well, I suspected that Beth really was perfect, and I was eaten up inside with envy. She made young adulthood look so easy to get right, from the perfect flip of her painstakingly styled hair to catching the eye of a 16-year-old boy I happened to crush on in THE worst way. I didn't make it easy for her to like me. I was a bit of a pill back in the day. (Let's face it. Still am.) Her brother, Ronnie, was really my only friend, though HIS friends usually made me the butt of their jokes whenever possible.
Really, with him, it was like I had a brother. Given I had always wanted one, this was fine by me.
When their Grandma came to visit from the Midwest, I had high hopes for that, too. But I was about to learn some big lessons on compromise. Namely - what it means to live peacefully with people who refused to make any.
It all started with the Christmas tree. Our trees in the past were colorful, usually taking two complimentary colors and pairing them together to make the tree more striking, like the blue and yellow silk bulbs on the 1978 Christmas tree.
Their tradition, however, involved only one color. Red.
I wasn't feeling it. The whole palette bored me to tears. I wanted a little variety, a little excitement. They wanted it decorator perfect. I realize that red is perfectly Christmasy. I wasn't trying to be a pain in the ass when I no doubt tried to plead my case. I probably wouldn't have minded if there were other colors in there, but red, red, red and more red?
Meh.
But when you're forced to live with folks you might not have anything, really, in common with... certain complications arise. The best you can ever do is make the best of it.
As you can see from the perfectly color-coordinated tree, it was a battle I lost, though I can't remember why. Maybe it was their tree. Maybe I just didn't want to make a huge deal about it. Sometimes it's just easier to keep the peace, although I can't imagine I was all that peaceful back then. We may not have been related, but Beth and I had skirmishes that rivaled those of Becky and Darlene Conner from TV's Roseanne.
Needless to say we didn't live together very long. They had moved out by the end of school in 1982, and we were back in Abilene before the summer was over, back in the house we owned but had rented out for income.
The Christmases after that weren't well-documented. Limited income brings a whole new set of complications. No money for film OR cameras probably topped that list, along with my mother's retail work schedule, which no doubt played havoc with any kind of holiday traditions like, oh I dunno, being home to share it with someone.
Christmas doesn't fill in until 1987, when I had a job of my own, and could participate in the gift-giving, photograph-taking, damned-if-I'm-gonna-remember-this-holiday festivities.
As you can tell from this fuzzy photo, Dan wasn't quite feeling it.
The point is the memories are scattered, like memories get sometimes. You pull forward what you need when you need it, and store the rest for safe-keeping.
That's kinda what I've always had to do to manage, when it came to my past, when it came to my Dad... when it came to all those lean years afterwards.
Last year I worked some of this out in a book called THE LEFTOVER CLUB, which turned out to be one of my most personal stories yet. I leaned heavily into my past to craft the plot, with several scenes based upon actual events, even if they were enhanced for effect. This included two single moms who lived together, with their kids, to make ends meet.
Of course I took some literary license. Like I've said, my books give me a chance to work through the past and create a better future, if for my characters alone. Nowhere is this truer than with THE LEFTOVER CLUB.
This book goes in and out, jumping back and forth, between the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, which made it a lot of fun to write. It was also very healthy to remember, no matter how the pieces fell into place.
I almost didn't finish that book. Roni was me sixteen years ago, and I barely recognized her anymore. There have been a lot of new memories to fill in the blanks now. Still... I think it was a positive to finish, and to put that old me to rest once and for all.
The memories are back in the box, stored properly, at the ready if I ever need them.
Better still the future is opened to new memories, one with enough room for a multi-colored Christmas tree that isn't any more perfect than I am.
Which could be why it makes me so happy.
Since we're on a nostalgia kick anyway... how about some favorites that defined the decades?
Okay. I'll admit it. There's a reason that I'm waxing fairly nostalgic today. One, yes, it is because it's my Dad's birthday. But two, I found a wealth of nostalgic goodness on The History Channel, which is playing a 4-part series of "Christmas Through the Decades." So far, I'm enjoying the 1960s, but I see my day being swallowed up with the 70s, 80s and 90s too.
So... yeah. I highly recommend the Christmas special. I was excited to find it and pleased it didn't let me down. But of course, history holes usually don't. Never stop learning, that's my motto.
And um... yeah. We did have an aluminum tree. Circa 1973:
I did it! I managed to bake a recipe! It is a family staple, not just around Christmas but *always* at Christmas.
Today's treat: SNICKERDOODLES
You can find the recipe on my Twelve Days of Christmas Pinterest Board.
Well, we talked about it a little earlier. My most personal book on one of my most personal days. THE LEFTOVER CLUB is free all day today, December 19.
Here's an excerpt in honor of my dad.
June 7, 1976
I don’t remember what I had been dreaming about first morning of summer break, but I remember that I woke up feeling happy. In fact, if pressed, I’d say I woke up most days feeling that way. I was privileged in the way that I all my basic needs met for a six-year-old in the 1970s. We lived in a nice suburb in a nice two-bedroom house with a big back yard complete with an orange tree. I had a beautiful purple bedroom, with frilly lace and dozens of stuffed animals, as well as a white canopy bed that made me feel just like a princess.
There were pictures of puppies on my wall in matching white lattice frames. It was the closest I could actually come to owning a dog, considering my dad was allergic. It was a grudge I held every time we went to the park just down the street from where we lived, where I watched kids play with pets that would love them unconditionally. In those days, every kid my age wanted a Benji dog, a loveable mutt that was smart enough to be a best friend, but cuddly enough to snuggle with while going to sleep each night.
I woke up as light began to pour through the wispy white curtains behind the darker purple drapes. I might have smiled at my closest ally, my pioneer-themed doll with long, yarn pigtails, a cheerful bonnet and a fabric face with a perpetual smile, who sat in her perch in a white rocking chair by the window. But before I could greet her with, “Good morning, Holly,” my door was creaking open and my mother’s head popped through.
My smile quickly faded when I saw the ravaged look on her face. Her cheeks were puffy and her eyes were red, and my mother – who I had never seen cry – sobbed instantly when she saw my face. I sat a little straighter in bed as she raced to my side, taking me in a powerful hug. “Mama?” I had asked.
“It’s Daddy, baby,” she had said, quickly as if she had to blurt it out or never say it at all. “He’s gone.”
She didn’t say that he died, or passed away, or expired. She simply said he was gone, as if he might come back one day. There was no point in sharing painful details like “fatal brain aneurysm” with a first-grader, who thought every boo-boo could be healed with a bandage and a kiss.
But that he was simply “gone” was equally confusing. I had kissed my smiling father goodnight eleven hours before, and by the time the sun broke he was just… gone? Where did he go? Most importantly, why did he go?
In the week it took to plan the funeral and to bury my father, I waited in that rocking chair with Holly in my lap, staring out the window and praying for my dad to come back. I knew it would never be normal until he did. A pall had fallen over my house, which had once been filled with laughter and hugs and unquestioning, unconditional love; a safe place for any child to grow up. My mother wept almost constantly, continually reminded of her loss no matter where she looked in our home, and of course whenever she looked at me.
Strangers that passed as family paraded through the house, dropping off an unending buffet of comfort food, from mashed potatoes and fried chicken to chocolate cake and apple pie.
And every night that my father failed to return, I would sneak into the kitchen and dig into that food so that I wouldn’t feel so hollow inside. It was an empty, endless ache and I was desperate to find any kind of salve.
I was numb by the time we entered that Gothic chapel at the cemetery where my father would be laid to rest. We rode in a limousine, my hand clasped in my mother’s hand, while she clutched a wet handkerchief with the other.
The chapel was full of flowers that made me sneeze and sad people I did not know. They all gave me a sympathetic look as I followed my mom to the pew in front. I stared at the polished coffin covered in even more flowers, trying to wrap my mind around the idea that my daddy was inside of it. The preacher droned on, but I didn’t hear anything he said. I stood when they sang, I sat for every eulogy. Several people wanted to share with my mother and me how much my dad had meant to them.
“We can’t imagine your loss,” they’d say, over and over again. “Gone too soon.” “So tragic.”
The preacher spoke repeatedly about my daddy being “asleep in the Lord,” that he had gone home to be with Our Heavenly Father. He would never know pain or loss. He was now in paradise waiting for us to join him some day.
He wasn’t dead. It wasn’t final. We’d see each other again.
He was just… “gone.”
Finally the words were spent. Men in suits removed the spray of flowers from his coffin and opened the lid, revealing an ivory satin interior. I followed my mother as we began the procession to view the body and say our final goodbyes. Lying within the box was my Daddy, and he was as young and handsome as he had been in life. It did look as though he was merely sleeping. I stood on my tiptoes to get a better look, watching his chest to see if it moved, watching his face to see if he would give me just one more smile.
Everything was just so painfully still.
When I reached for his hand, my mother smothered her sob in her handkerchief and looked away. I touched his hand, which had been placed onto his other hand on his chest. His skin was cold. His hand was stiff.
It wasn’t my Daddy anymore. I knew it the moment I touched him. I didn’t know who this was, but my Daddy truly was gone.
The days bled together after that. I started to hate my room, my house, my neighborhood, the park. Nothing was bright anymore. Nothing was cheerful. Even my dolls had lost their smiles.
By summer’s end my mother was desperate to pull me out of my funk, especially when it was clear we were going to have to move from the house I had known my whole life. The expenses of Daddy’s healthcare and burial forced us to sell the house to pay the bills, not to mention give us something to live off of while Mom re-entered the workforce for a lot less money than Daddy was making. She introduced me to Bonnie Fenn, and I finally got to meet Dylan. I had noticed him on the very first day of school, when he happened to ace a spelling bee in the first week of first grade.
He was smart and I liked that, at a time when I liked very little because the sun went out in my world.
In a last ditch effort to cheer me up, my mother offered to take me to the pound, to get a puppy at last, hoping maybe that would fill the hole I now had in my heart. But every time I had looked at those puppy photos on my wall, I was reminded yet again of what I no longer had.
I learned at six that love didn’t last forever. Any promise otherwise is a promise doomed to be broken.
So I packed those photos and gave them away. It was easier to give up the dream than to wake up to a nightmare.
I don’t think I smiled again until the fall, when we all sat to watch the annual broadcast of The Wizard of Oz. Dylan pulled me up to act out a scene with the Scarecrow, and didn’t give up until he had me in stitches.
I forgot for a couple of hours I was supposed to be sad.
Yet when I went to bed that night, and cuddled with Holly to go to sleep, I was too terrified to close my eyes. I had laughed. I had been happy. It couldn’t last, I knew. The clock was ticking. The hourglass had been flipped and the sand was falling fast.
I stayed up all night, determined to greet the sun. I couldn’t go to sleep. Bad things happen to happy people when they’re asleep. I’d stay awake and then maybe the boogeyman would skip over our house entirely. Around three o’clock, I crawled into bed with my mom, wrapping my arms around her waist so I could feel her breathe. When I met Dylan for cereal and cartoons that next morning, I was thrilled to see that we’d both made it through the night. But I knew that I had to guard my heart. I couldn’t risk the rug being pulled out from under me again. Some folks could have the life I saw repeated on TV and in movies, where parents didn’t die and people didn’t move and all problems were fixed in an hour.
I knew that blessed life didn’t apply to me anymore. The promise had been broken. And I’d never believe again.
