To the One Who Left Us Too Soon

The second Christmas without you. I planned on more. You were supposed to see him graduate, go off to college, get married. I expected to warn him someday against leaving his fragile newborn in your ancient, shaky hands.

But you didn't make it to his senior year of high school. By now, the gift of numbness has evaporated. The pain is less frequent, but it cuts deeper. The hair-salon magazines issue a breezy, facile suggestion--they tell me to reach out, ease someone else's pain, make Christmas merry for someone who's REALLY hurting.

Bitter backlash plagues me for half a day. I'm "REALLY hurting," d*mnit. Does my pain not count because I'm well fed? Is my loss invalid because I have a good job and pretty shoes? Does privilege render my broken heart ineligible for solace?

Perspective stuns me, whips me. The rancor was false--a mask for deep, searing sadness. The memories are joyous and painful. Remembering, the senses torture and comfort.

I smell your nut roll. It's seconds away from burning. Daddy rushes in, rescues it. EVERY TIME. He chuckles that you'll never learn--and you never did. It's the taste of Christmas. Until my dying day, nut roll will taste like Christmas, even when I'm not entirely sure I like the stuff. Mexican wedding cakes. Spritz. Peanut-butter fudge. Sugar cookies, rolled with the ancient maple pin on the ancient maple board--among the few useful implements you left me--frosted with a powdered-sugar glaze and decorated with contraband silver dragees. I won, Mother. Mine taste and look better. They just do.

I am three. Your soft, flawed soprano croaks "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" as we look out my bedroom window for Santa in his sleigh. We spot him--there he is! We find him every year.

I am 19. My roommate has come for Christmas--her first visit to California. You and Daddy rush out to make sure there are lots of gifts for her. We eat nut roll. You sing "Rudolph." All is merry and bright.

I am 30. The little girl who will become my stepdaughter beams in the Alice-blue pinafore dress you made her. You and she spend an hour or two finding frisky elves in your enormous Christmas tree, spotting them just before they duck behind a thick branch or an oversized ornament. Later, she piles onto your lap with your dog and the cat you stole from me; you read "A Visit from St. Nicholas" to her. She refuses nut roll; together, you sing "Rudolph."

I am 35. Your grandboy will be 11 days old on Christmas. I am tired, sore, spent. The in-laws swarm, grabbing my baby, chattering happily, exhausting me. You promise Christmas Eve dinner for the assembled masses. I end up cooking it. My son and I adjourn, seeking silence, darkness, nut roll. When they leave, you sing "Rudolph" to your weary girl and her miracle baby.

I miss your ugly styrofoam ornaments--I cry for your tacky plastic icicles--I sigh when I wear your rhinestone-laden Christmas pins, a gift every year from the blue-eyed Bing Crosby lookalike who adored you. We treat the blown glass stork, the faded bells, the crumbling Eskimo doll from your first Christmas in 1929 as honored guests. They go high on the tree with my Radko Holy Family ornament, Everything else is supporting cast.

You are presumably beyond longing, impervious to sadness, past tears and pain and loneliness. You are, I'm told, busily rejoicing in eternal life, enjoying your well-earned rest, living jubilantly and peacefully. I don't doubt it, not really. If anyone "deserves" heaven and salvation . . .

He will be home from his first semester at college soon, racing in all aglow, talking about his finals, his girl, his buddies, his adventures, the snow. He will enliven me, energize the house. He will jolt me out of this reverie. He has a hard time admitting he'd love to tell you everything too. Maybe he does, maybe he's taken to ancestor worship as he explores his place in the cosmos. I know his heart reaches for you, even if his words do not. We will eat nut roll.

I will sing "Rudolph." Maybe I won't. Maybe the tears will overcome me, as they have of late. But my heart will sing "Rudolph" while my ears reach back through the years to hear your voice. We will have a merry Christmas, come what may. We know no other kind. That is your legacy to your two heartbroken "babies." Sleep in heavenly peace, Momma Wolfie.