In 1996 we decided to honor Christmas by having everyone write down our "memorable Christmas at Connie's". This was mine. It was in my Keepsake Box.
I use to have a better memory. As a child, I was excellent at memorizing the state capitals and the order of the presidents of the United States, but somewhere, and unfortunately, I can't remember exactly when my mind stopped retaining a lot of things. Years seem to just blend and I can't recall what year such in such happened, or what year so and so got married. Perhaps it is that the years are flying by at a much quicker pace now that I'm older and I just don't have the time to shove vital information into my long term memory to hold as a treasure ---or to use when I'm assigned a task such as Christmas at Connie's.
The point I'm trying to make of all of this is I don't really remember the first time we began getting together at the holidays. To me, it's as if it has always been this way. Ask me what Christmas means and I'll answer, "Family." I believe that the holidays are a time for the family to gather to reflect on the past year, to celebrate, to mourn, to laugh and to cry over that year. Who better to do that with than the people you can be yourself with---family.
My family is my mother and father, my brother, my cousin, my aunt, my great aunt, and now it includes a husband, a child, a sister-in-law, a nephew, and Jay. Looking back I know there was a time we weren't together, but I consider those times as Christmas in my childhood. As an adult Christmas was spent with my family.
We sort of fell into a pattern of tradition at those Christmas at Connie's. We talked into the wee hours of the morning. We completed a big puzzle. We rented bad movies and made fun of the plots, the actors, the scenery, and we searched in vain for Joanne Woodward. We picked one movie to attend at the theater. We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas dinner that Connie slaved over. We read quietly and napped when we wanted. Connie bitched. Russ growled. Maya whined. Rusty
disappeared. Aunt Helen dictated, and Aunt Marilyn took everything in for future counseling sessions or
plots or something.
I can't remember my exact role. But it was all part of our Christmas--part of our release of feelings from the past year, and for some even farther back in years. And all of this was our normal, traditional Christmas at Connie's.
Christmas 1992 didn't start out normal. I was in Tom's apartment. He was taking me to the airport the next day. We were trying to get through the day without thinking of our separation. Connie called and delivered the news. Rusty and Susan's unborn baby might have a spinal defect. It had shown up in a blood test. Connie was stricken. She had gotten out her
Merk Manual and read everything she could. The baby wouldn't live long outside the womb.
Susan said she would not terminate the pregnancy. They were to go to Indianapolis on Christmas Eve day for a specialized ultrasound at
IU Medical Center. Rusty and Susan were
devastated.
The mood at 8200 Pine Creek was solemn when I arrived. Aunt Marilyn and Maya were already there. The day was spent talking in hushed tones, everyone thinking of Rusty and Susan and the baby. The subject had been discussed, but it wasn't
spoken of much after that. It was as if we just couldn't bear to think or speak of it. Tomorrow would tell us what was to be done.
When the call came in Christmas Eve, I was sitting on the couch in the living room. I vaguely remember someone there with me--Aunt Helen at the puzzle table or Maya waiting with me--it is as fuzzy as my memory tends to be, or perhaps the scene was just that surreal. We had just all been going through the motions waiting for the phone to ring. Russ was in his office. Connie was wandering the house doing laundry or something. Marilyn was downstairs reading.
The phone rang and we sort of froze while Connie in the bedroom (or was it the kitchen) and Russ in his office picked it up. Listening to the solemn voice of my mother on our end, I asked the unknown for a miracle. To take away this awful pain. To not let this happen at Christmas. And even at that moment, I realized, there probably wasn't a better time than Christmas where we were surrounded by the people who could help my brother and his wife and us through what could potentially be a devastating life experience.
My mother: "Oh, Rusty, I'm so happy for you."
Then the shouting began. "Everything is fine. The baby is okay. And it's a boy!" My mother was still shouting even when the call ended. My father came up the stairs then and my mother met him at the top. They embraced tightly and I watched my father cry, only the second time I had ever witnessed this. I can remember his words, "You don't know how hard this has been for me." And they clung to each other, something rare in our family, until Dad broke away and gruffly said, "Better get back to the office." And he turned around and disappeared back down the stairs.
Maya was beside me then on the couch patting me. My mother hugged me. We heard about the exam. Everything looked good. The baby was developing just right. It was a boy, no mistaking that organ on the ultrasound. Rusty boasted that the baby took after the old man. We laughed, and cried, and then got down to celebrating not only the news, but Christmas.
That night Rusty stayed with us. He and I slept in his bunk beds in his old room just as we had done as kids. I was on the top bunk. He was on the bottom. He talked to me about his feelings of fatherhood, of marriage, of the test, of his life. This too was so rare, and I clung to the conversation, the sharing of emotions.
As as we talked and listened to Marilyn and Maya whispering in the next room, it began to snow. Thick, heavy flakes falling from the sky. I don't know how we knew it, but we did, and we climbed out of bed and stood together at the window watching it come down. And we realized it was Christmas.
It's the one Christmas that will forever linger in my mind.
