Oh Christmas Tree – Gram Style
Some years ago, perhaps 10 or 11, before the onset of the
Dementia (or perhaps it was even a result of the early onset), during a visit
to Gram’s house, I noticed a big stack of boxes in her laundry room. There, in the middle of the floor, stacked
high, were the boxes containing her Christmas decorations and tree
trimmings. It was July, so I was obviously
curious. “What’s all this,” I asked. “I’m throwing it all out!” she
exclaimed. “I’m cleaning things out and
I don’t have room for that shit here.” “Oh,”
I said, thinking she’d never really throw the stuff away, because I had tried
to help her throw other stuff away before and she would pull it back out of the
garbage. To my surprise, she did throw
it all out – ornaments from years and years ago, lights- the big, round frosted
ones that I always loved so much (and that you can’t buy anymore), the liquid
lights that bubbled liquid while they were lit- all of it, gone. I was surprised, disappointed and saddened. My fondest childhood Christmas memories were
those that involved Gram and there were always decorations and a beautiful tree
with lots of presents under it.
Gram always cooked for Christmas Day and I spent the day
there with her and Jude. (When Chubbs,
Gram’s son was alive, he too, would be there.)
As Christmas approached that year,
I kept asking about a tree. “No, I’m not
getting a Goddamn tree. Why do you think
I threw out all that shit? I’m not doing
that anymore; I’m tired of it!” “It’s
Christmas,” I’d say. “We need to do
something.”
At one point, unbeknownst to me, she had gone to Walmart and
bought a 3-foot fiber optic tree on a little stand that rotated and gave off
light through a prism. The branches were
very fine and coated with a white substance to mimic snow and as the base
slowly spun, the fiber optic strands lit up in beautiful colors.
One night when I was visiting, I brought up Christmas
again. “I can’t believe we’re not even
going to have a tree for Christmas,” I lamented. Making no comment, Gram marched into the
laundry room and came out carrying a box.
She pulled the tree out of the box, plopped it down on the end table
that was next to the sofa, and said, “Now there, there’s your Goddamn tree!”
And so it’s been every year since then. Each year as I pull the tree out to take it
to Manor Care, I can’t help but to smile as I remember that day.
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