O Christmas Tree

Tonight, decorating my boyfriend's shiny fake brown tree, strung with bunny lights, I broke for a moment. (Is that oxymoronic--can one really break for just a moment; is it then not a real break?) I was hanging ornaments, and for many years I bought matching ornaments for my mother and I, to create a mirroring between home and away. I couldn't remember the origins of some, while others' purchases I recalled vividly, as with those from the Mikasa outlet in Irvine; the strangeness of buying crystal snowflakes in a desert.

In my ten years in England, I think I've seen candy canes just once, and so finding them today amid online grocery shopping startled and delighted me. On Christmas Day candy canes would appear on the tree, as though left by Santa; there were several late nights I put those candy canes up for the sake of my younger sisters and later my nieces and nephews. Now I'm eager to repeat the same, as I cling to that sharply severed thread to the past.

Often in my thoughts are my parents' histories, which they referred to in asides and the odd anecdote over the years. Both were only children. After my father died, my mother intended to write down what she knew of her family's history, once she retired; she died days before the first retirement check arrived. I scramble at what I remember, knowing how much information my parents held dear that died with them. There is so much information, and still so much lost.

From here I see a rare photograph of my father smiling after his paralysis. He's got a Christmas present in his lap. One brother in law, two nephews, and my mother are scattered and intent on their own purposes in the background, and for once Dad looks at ease in the ill-fitted wheelchair. I had a tremendously nourishing family life, I knew and appreciated the fact, and oh, life seems so meager without it.