A Grandmother's Gift...

She whispered...

...this one, Daddy. I love this one.

And she watched the clerk wrap the small bottle brush wreath in tissue paper. Then over the river and through the woods, she presented this gift to her grandmother.

That year and every one after it hung in her grandmother's kitchen. When the young then older girl visited each Christmas, she looked to the window, to see the little wreath.

It is there, again, her heart whispered.

My heart remembers, a sweet wreath and more.

Our holiday memories blur, one after another, if we are so lucky to have them. If we are blessed to have lived them.

Elementary school gift exchanges. Please, please, let me get the Lifesaver candy book, this year puleeze. Snow angels in a park, a simple park made sparkly for one season. My small mouth opened to catch falling snow, lights twinkling on giant (to me) evergreen trees. Hours spent pouring over the JCPenney Christmas Catalog, making lists and checking them twice. And a long dinner table. Card table chairs between wooden ones, because there were that many people then.

Excuse me, excuse me.

Tucking myself in to a chair, with people still here and people gone now. Red- tinged glassware, laughter-laced toasts. I miss the people gone now. Memories come, of their smiles, mostly their love. These celestial ones cheer me along.

Christmas is magic, Julie. Remember this always. And we love you. We love you...

...but I wish you were here. To touch and to hug. I wish, oh I wish that you were still here.

And from this wish, I turn to memories of Santa, his visits every single year. White ringlets, sweat beads on his lip, from his many stops, a busy night. Reaching to pull gifts from his bag; Baby Alive, Light Brite, Tinker Toys. His visits went fast, always too fast, over too soon. Then my sister and I strained to hear sleigh bells that my parents promised were ringing in that night sky.

Santa is off to another chimney! Can you hear, girls? Can you hear?

Yes, yes, we can hear those bells, Santa is flying! (Insert peels of little girl giggles).

Christmas is magic, Julie. Remember this always. And we love you. We love you...

...so Christmases spun one to the next, then 40 more. And three years ago, I headed to the thrift shop to buy an artificial tree. Now, it stands proudly in my living room, white pretty lights turned on each night. Quite simply: there was a global pandemic, a leg tumor, and well, that tree seemed and still seems appropriate, every day of the year.

During my Winter and then Spring of chemo, I sat with home health nurses next to it. Blood pressure cuffs and thermometers came out. Nurses sorted through big cardboard boxes of medical supplies. A clinic with a tree, standing watch, cheering me on. In March, I had set the goal to take ornaments down by April, as they seemed unnecessary to my tree's joy. So ornaments came down, a mighty task for me, and I celebrated with the nurse.

Until she said...Julie, you need another blood transfusion...and the tree wept with me then.

When we are young, we believe in magic, easily. It finds us in many places and ways, as we pile snow into Frosty, then spy him move. Did you see, did you see, he is real, yipee! We believe for an odd number of years, many of us, that reindeer can fly. And now? We know that life hits hard and fast sometimes, it can seem cruel even, while we try our best to be nice and not naughty, or just get out of bed. As we sit beside trees during chemo, wishing to be making snow angels instead. But there are to do lists and random worries and fears, as days slip by in December. Sand in our hourglass.

A memory might sneak in, as we run an errand or shovel the snow. A wreath or something such, very special in our hearts, people we have loved so.

But in all that missing and longing, longing and missing...I remember my grandmother's hand, held out to accept my gift, the wreath.

For she said...

...yes to love, a child's love, to my love. And each year, late at night and she very tired perhaps...she hung her gift.

But as she stepped back to take a peek, right there in her kitchen and at the end of her long day...she bumped into Magic.

It is then she reaches through the years, down the memories and the tears, to hold out her hand to me.

Here, Julie, I have a gift for you.

So I turn to my grandmother, to receive her Magic then.

Me and my all-year tree.