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Ramonajohn.com/my family.com

I was incredibly lucky to be born to Mom and Dad. Let me tell you about them.

LEGACY FROM MY MOTHER

Soon after my Mother died, I found she'd written in the margin of a book, "Love is a very agreeable passion, and sometimes it is stronger than death." I'd like to believe she wrote it for me to find. But it wasn't necessary because…

Once, as we were walking home from kindergarten, I ran to pick a flower blooming by a wall. She said "Wait." That’s how she taught me the pleasure of leaving a beautiful thing to grow and looking for it in the morning. And once, we wanted to buy two ice cream cones for a nickel apiece at Demar Drug Store. We hunted everywhere, but all the cash we had in the world that day was nine cents. Somehow, she made that seem funny. We laughed and laughed. She never hinted it could be scary not to have money.

When I had something to tell her, Mom listened. I burst in from my first day of school, shouting that I could read the words, "I can run." She heard, and she understood that was important. Years later, she heard when I told her I loved a man, and again, when I told her love had ended. Each time her arms opened wide. Her heart was never closed to me, and her love imposed no conditions.

Mom never dictated dreams. She looked when I pointed out the star I'd chosen as my own and wished on it with me. Dad wrote poetry and loved music. Mom said poetry was beyond her understanding, and she sang off key when occasionally she joined the hymns at the Baptist Temple. But she understood that they were different and never tried to reshape Dad, to make her life easier. She handled his dreams gently.

During the Depression, she sacked candy in a factory ten hours a day, because that was the work available. At night, she sewed for me and even created a delicate, lace-trimmed wardrobe for my doll.

For years, Mother was a teacher. She was wise enough to know her purpose wasn't to make children memorize dates and facts. Rather, she opened their eyes to the incredible world around them and helped them want to learn. She believed in the value of hugs, and bestowed them generously. I'm sure her students obeyed her, as I did, because disappointing her would have been unthinkable. Mother worked until a few days before she died. Children she had taught years before brought their children to meet her.

These were things that pleased her: dogs, President Roosevelt, the OU Sooners football team, a new dress, chocolate pie, and reading. These were things that did not: prejudice, tomatoes, bullies, high heels, malicious gossip and the Notre Dame football team, (because they beat the Sooners). Her love was the surest thing I've ever known, and the truest thing I know today is this: "Love is a very agreeable passion, and sometimes it is stronger than death.

LEGACY FROM MY FATHER

My father was a gentle man, who expected the best of each morning. He relished simple things: the coming of summer, when he could smell and taste the roses and melons and tomatoes he had planted in the earth; a rag-tag little dog named Dusty, who was always within petting distance; and sitting on a river bank, hoping to catch a fish.

He understood what matters. If a bad dream woke me as a child, he held me on his lap and told me a story, and I wasn't afraid any more. He never made light of anything that was important to me. He applauded my small victories and his heart wept my tears.

Dad had a talent for trusting. He believed in others so firmly that they sometimes surprised themselves by becoming what he always knew them to be. He died convinced that those who love God and their fellow man can come to no lasting harm.

He delighted in holidays, and oh, how he celebrated them! He happily strung red paper bells and silver tinsel all over the house at Christmas, and filled a tub with apples for Halloween bobbing, and decorated each Easter egg as if it were a work of art.

He was a singer of songs, a writer of poetry and a dreamer of dreams. He did not read music, but when Dad sat down at our old piano, he hands moved swiftly over the keys, playing by ear the songs he sang in his heart: Red Wing; Turkey in the Straw; and The Old rugged Cross. He wrote poetry about the things he loved: the beauty of the earth; music; and my mother. His dreams rarely came true, but he was truly resilient. the failure of one dream never diminished his enthusiasm for the next.
Dad was infinitely kind. He accepted lop-sided haircuts, because he was one of his elderly barber's few remaining customers, and the man needed the money.

When Dad died, the church overflowed with those who grieved. He would have been astonished. He never realized his life had touched so many people. If you had asked him about himself, he would have said only this:
He was the last of ten children, whose mother died soon after his birth. He traveled with his father and brothers by covered wagon across Oklahoma laying ties for the railroad. There was no money for his schooling after the eighth grade, so his dream of becoming a minister died early. He joined the army as a teenager in World War I. He and my mother were married thirty-seven years. After she died, I found tender love letters he had written her as long as he lived. They owned their own grocery store once, but lost it during the Great Depression, when they would not deny food on their shelves to hungry customers who had no money. After that, he always worked for someone else. His were unexciting jobs. Grocery clerk. Pullman conductor, salesman. But he always gave his best.

Dad said to me once that I was his life's miracle. I know now that having him as my dad was one of mine.

ACT OF ATONEMENT

The smallest, meanest thing I’ve ever done, I did to my father.

At twenty-one, though I still lived at home, I had just landed my first “important” job. A couple of new friends from work, sophisticated, successful women in my eyes, invited me to lunch, and I wanted to make a good impression.

Dad called the office after we left, and learned of our plans. I felt sure that my companions’ fathers were professional people. When I saw Dad peering through the restaurant window that day, dressed in a working man’s clean but well-worn clothing, I was ashamed of him. I hid behind a pillar so I wouldn’t have to acknowledge him as my father.

One of the women asked if I knew that funny little man who seemed to be trying to find someone, and I replied, “Of course not.” He finally went away.

That evening Dad said he was sorry he’d missed the chance to buy lunch for my friends and me. I pray that he never knew the truth.

I'll be ashamed of what I did that day for the rest of my life. It haunts me more than other, worse, mistakes I’ve made, because the snub was so undeserved, and I was so wrong about what mattered. It’s too late to go back and proudly present him to my friends. The only act of atonement I know how to make is to introduce you now to my father.

Dad was a gentle man who expected the best of each morning. Simple things pleased him most: the coming of summer, when he could smell the roses and taste the melons and tomatoes he had planted in the earth; a rag-tag little dog named Dusty, who was always within petting distance; and sitting on a river bank, hoping to catch a fish.

When I was little and awoke from a bad dream, he’d hold me on his lap and tell me a story, and I wasn’t afraid anymore. If something was important to me, it mattered to him, too. He shared my small victories, and his heart wept my tears.

Dad paid his bills, and kept his promises, and refused to take the easy way if it compromised his principles.

I still recall his lovely laugh.

At times, I could have strangled him. When the “shortcuts” he insisted on taking led ever farther from our destination, he drove stubbornly on, refusing to stop for directions or even to admit we were lost.

He loved a good cigar. Though liquor had no place in our Baptist household, he and Mom would sometimes open a bottle of Mogen David wine during the holidays and giggle at one another like two naughty children.

The ability to trust others was one of Dad’s greatest talents. His faith in people was so strong that they sometimes surprised themselves by becoming what he’d always believed them to be.

With all his heart he was a Christian, and remained convinced throughout his lifetime that those who love God and their fellow man can come to no lasting harm.

Holidays were his favorite time, to be celebrated with unrestrained pleasure. He strung red bells and silver tinsel all over the house at Christmas, and filled a tub with apples for Halloween bobbing, and decorated each egg at Easter as if it were a work of art.

His poetry praised the things he loved, the beauty of the earth, music and my mother.

Piano lessons were a luxury beyond his reach, but his hands moved swiftly over the keys of our old Steinway, playing by ear the songs he sang with such gusto: Redwing, Turkey in the Straw, The Old Rugged Cross. Sundays found him at his regular spot, in the tenor section of our church choir.

Dad dreamed many dreams, but they rarely came true. Still, the failure of one plan never touched his enthusiasm for the next.

His kindness was remarkable. To Mom’s dismay, the barber who cut Dad’s hair butchered it. But Dad refused to take his business elsewhere, because the old gentleman had few remaining customers and needed the work.

It was Dad who taught me to waltz at the family dances held in McKinley Park when I was twelve. He read to me until I could read for myself. When my pet frog died, it was he who helped me bury it beneath a pile of pure white pebbles.

The prettiest dress I ever owned was a rare, store-bought gift from my father. To an objective observer that day, I would have appeared gangly, an unformed fourteen year old. But when I stepped tentatively from the store’s dressing room in softest velvet, through Dad's eyes I first saw myself as beautiful.

When Dad died, the church overflowed. It would have astonished him to learn that so many people grieved.

The facts of his life are these: His mother, who had ten children, died soon after his birth. At the age of seven, he traveled with his father and brothers across Oklahoma in a covered wagon, laying ties for the railroad. His family couldn’t afford to send him to school after the eighth grade, so his dream of becoming a minister died early. A picture of him, taken during World War I, shows a vulnerable-looking seventeen year old, with a crew-cut, staring solemnly into the camera. His marriage to my Mother lasted thirty-seven years and, after her death, I found tender love notes he had written to her throughout his lifetime. Most of his jobs were mundane ones - grocery clerk, Pullman conductor - but he always gave his best. My folks had their own grocery once, but they lost it during the depression, when they wouldn’t withhold the food on their shelves from hungry customers who couldn’t pay.

Forgive me, Dad, for that day so long ago when I denied that I knew you. Today, you are the standard by which I measure my life. Once you told me I was your life’s miracle; I know now that having you as my father was mine.

DAD'S LOT IN CHANNING

Recently, I signed papers deeding Dad’s lot in Channing, Texas to a stranger, leaving a lump in my throat and my eyes teary. That surprised me, until I thought about it.

The last of ten children born to a sharecropper and his wife, Dad lost his mother soon after his birth. His father did his best, but money was scarce, and Dad’s education ended with the eighth grade. By the 1920s, he was back from service in World War I and working around the Texas panhandle at one job or another, trying to make ends meet. Not yet thirty, Dad was on his own and lonely, for Mom still waited in his future. But he dreamed of the family he’d have one day and how he could give them the financial security he’d never known.

He got to talking to folks around Channing, a small town about 100 miles outside of Amarillo. Everyone was excited. The railroad was coming through town, they said, and the price of land was going to climb out of sight. Dad thought he was in luck. This could be the beginning of the nest egg for his future family! He worked and saved enough to buy a small lot in the heart of town.

A few years passed. He moved to Oklahoma, where he fell in love with his niece's pretty school teacher and married her. After a while, I was born. They bought a grocery store, but lost it in the Great Depression. Times were hard for my folks in those years, as they were for most people. The nest egg never grew, but they held on to the lot in Channing.

After they paid their bills, Mom carefully stretched the few remaining dollars for food. We never went hungry. Yet, I might have been frightened by our lack of material possessions, but for the love which surrounded me and that one ever-present piece of tangible security, Dad’s lot in West Texas. I didn’t see how anybody who was a landowner could be really poor. It seemed to me if things got down to the wire, we could always go live on that lot or sell it for enough money to get by.

I don’t know when Dad realized that the railroad was never going to come through Channing, and the lot was never going to be worth much. Perhaps he never did.

In the six years that Mom lived after Dad died, she still paid the taxes on his lot. They were next to nothing, but if they had been higher, I don’t think it would have mattered. She was simply keeping faith with his memory, for she never laid eyes on that land, before Dad’s death or after. Neither did I. Perhaps we didn't want reality to mar what had been his dream.

After Mom died, over thirty years ago, I paid the annual taxes, sometimes as little as a quarter, and finally as much as a dollar. Once in a while, I’d have this crazy notion that a bank was sitting on that land and it was worth a fortune, after all. Then Dick and I would laugh and he’d tell me, “You’re a dreamer, just like your dad,” and I’d say, “Yep, and that’s a good thing to be.”

A friend who lives in Lubbock, a stone’s throw from Channing as West Texas measures distance, said the next time he was out that way he’d check on the land to satisfy my curiosity. I couldn’t wait for his report. He talked to folks in Channing, went by the courthouse, and even took a picture of Dad’s lot. Afterward, he called and said I shouldn’t plan to retire there or live off the earnings from its sale. When the picture came, I saw what he meant. Dad’s lot was just a forlorn, dusty scrap of prairie, with scattered traces of brush.
My friend mentioned one problem. The man who now owns most of the land around town fenced Dad’s lot along with the others. I felt I had to defend that property, which had been such an integral part of my life, so I wrote to ask him to unfence it or buy it.

Mr. Hunnicutt called, and he seemed like a nice man. I believed him when he said he wouldn’t want to claim land that wasn’t his. He agreed to buy the lot for a hundred and fifty dollars, the amount the appraiser said it was worth, and that sounded fair. So I sent him a deed and he sent me a check.

I felt a little sad, almost as if I were abandoning an old friend. It may never have fulfilled Dad’s plan for it, but that lot was a better investment than he knew. It told Mom and me that he was thinking of us before he ever knew us. It stood for hope when the going was rough. And it was a link for me with the past, where, like my folk’s love, it was a constant. But those ends had been met, and it was time to move on.

A hundred and fifty dollars isn’t a lot of money, but in this case, how I spent it mattered. I tried to think of a way Dad’s land could continue to serve a useful purpose, and I kept remembering how he could never pass an animal that was hungry or hurt without stopping to help. So, when Mr. Hunnicutt sent me his check, I passed it along to the Humane Society. Maybe it’ll save a dog that will brighten somebody’s life for years to come. Dad would like that.

SOL AND THE DREAM

Another major influence in my life was Solomon Jackson Caudle, my grandfather and my childhood idol.

Although he died when I was little, I remember trips with Grandfather to Burbridge’s Ice Cream Parlor, the spot I suspected was Heaven. Lifting me onto his shoulders, he would carry me to the counter. We ordered double-dip cones, licking them quickly before chocolate ran down the sides.

A slight, white-haired man with a gentle smile, he didn’t look like a star among trial lawyers in Missouri, where we lived, but he was. Mother had saved his letters, written before I was born, and I re-read them so often as I grew up that I knew them by heart. They revealed a warm, caring man. When I asked Mother to describe what he had been like, she hesitated. “Colorful,” she observed dryly.

She recalled one stifling August afternoon in the early 1900s, at the old stone courthouse across from his law office in Warrensburg, Missouri. A flutter of fans and the restless stir of the crowd overflowing the tiny courtroom broke the charged silence when Sol began his final argument in a murder trial. He alternately thundered and cooed at the jurors, convincing them, as he was convinced, of his client's innocence. Finally, he thrust a human skull high above his head, invoking the judgment of God Almighty upon the true perpetrator of the ghastly deed. The bedazzled jurors returned a prompt acquittal.

Achieving his childhood dream of becoming a lawyer had been difficult. Sol’s father, a Confederate veteran, died soon after the Civil War. At eighteen, Sol made his way from North Carolina to Missouri, where he got a job and saved his money until he could afford to send for his mother. He bought and farmed a small piece of land to support the two of them. Eventually, he earned a teaching certificate and was able, during his spare time, to study law in a local attorney's office. At last, he passed the bar.

Grandfather hoped Mother would become a lawyer, too, a shocking idea in the early 1900s. She firmly declined. My birth rekindled his dream. If not his daughter, perhaps his granddaughter might follow him into the legal profession.

Mother and Grandmother kept his image alive for me as I grew up. I had no reason to suspect I didn’t know the whole truth about my grandfather. Sol seemed better than Superman to me, and I wanted to be just like him. His dream for me evolved into my own.

Law school wasn’t easy, but when I felt too exhausted to read another page, I thought of Sol. I remembered the obstacles Grandfather had faced to become a lawyer, and tried harder. The day I took my oath as an attorney, my heart ached. Neither he nor my parents knew I had fulfilled our dream. When I stood before my first jury, unsure and afraid, I imagined I felt his soaring spirit within me. and found the strength to fight and win.

Ten years later, I returned to Warrensburg to wander through the building where his law office had been and the courthouse where he had practiced. I dropped by the Historical Society, hoping to find information about him. The librarian helped me search.

The first newspaper clipping detailed his marriage to Grandmother, “one of the county’s most charming young ladies.” It also mentioned his appointment to the office of public administrator, calling him, “one of our rising young lawyers.”

When she found the next article, the librarian paused for a moment, then handed the clipping to me. She looked away while I read. “Caudle Pleads Guilty,” proclaimed the headline of the December 18, 1903, Warrensburg Weekly Standard Herald. My hands shook as I read. Sol had been indicted for embezzlement. In what the article called a “dramatic moment,” Grandfather rose in court and pled guilty.

He had taken “small” amounts, totaling about four thousand dollars, from fifty widows’ estates entrusted to him. He received a two-year prison sentence, and that same day, accompanied by a deputy, he left for prison in Jefferson City.

The librarian handed me other articles. I read on in disbelief, as the editorials referred to his shameful crimes as "misdeeds." One asked, “Is Sol Caudle really a thief- a bad man? “ The editor rushed to defend him, saying, “We believe he is a criminal only because he committed what the law designates as a crime!” He emphasized that Sol didn’t “dissipate or gamble or speculate, but used the money to take care of his wife, children and aged mother,” implying that those facts somehow excused his actions!

I took a moment to fold away the remaining clippings that the librarian had copied for me and managed to thank her, struggling to keep my voice steady. She avoided my eyes.

Stunned, I headed to the cemetery, a quiet place atop a hill. Birds sang, and flowers bloomed, and peace covered the landscape like an early snowfall. All of them are buried there --- Mother, Dad, Grandmother, and of course, Sol.

I sank to my knees at their graves. One moment I grieved for something precious I had lost. Then I felt furious, betrayed. They had let me build my dream around a lie, the integrity and strength of my grandfather. They had even encouraged me to become a lawyer, like him. I talked to them. I had so many questions. Was he ever sorry? Did he repay the money? Did Grandmother think of leaving him? How did she feed her children during the long months of his imprisonment? I covered my face with my hands and wept. There would never be any answers.

Sol’s story didn’t end with prison. The next day, I found a later headline, “Sol Caudle Returns!” The Governor pardoned him, “at the solicitation of his many friends,” and restored his full rights of citizenship. “Sol received a warm greeting at the train from his devoted wife, friends and family,” the story gushed. It went on to admonish readers that, “He will find that his friends here are ready to forget his error. .. No good citizen will throw a stone in his way.” Ah, Grandfather, how did you inspire such loving support?

I returned to my life in Houston, far from those graves on a Missouri hilltop. Afterward, when I thought of Sol, I felt disillusioned and sad. Weeks later, the mailman brought a clipping the librarian had overlooked. The headline read, “Sol Caudle Dies Friday Morning.” It outlined his life.

After prison, Grandfather resumed practice and became successful in the following thirty years. He was City Attorney for a time and developed into a legendary trial attorney. The Baptist church overflowed at his funeral, and the town's most prominent judges and attorneys were his pall-bearers. The article concluded, “He was recognized by the bench and bar as a lawyer of keen discrimination, with a rare sense of justice and human nature.”

Over time, as I grew, I realized what courage it had taken to return to those who had witnessed his disgrace and earn their respect once more. Those he had hurt the most forgave him, Mother, who adored him, and Grandmother, who never spoke of him that her face did not soften in remembrance. When he died, a whole town mourned. Could they have cared so much had he not been, in the end, the man they always believed him to be?

In Grandmother’s Bible, I found a typed quotation from an Edwin Markham poem:
“Ah, great it is to believe the dream
When you stand in youth by the starry stream,
But a greater thing is to fight life through
And say at the end, the dream is true.”

Once again, I think of Sol with love. Not as my idol, for idols permit no flaws, but as the man who overcame his past and became the person I’m proud to call my grandfather. He won his last case.

GRANDMOTHER’S DOLLAR

Today I had to empty Mother’s cedar chest, so that it can be moved by the men who are coming to install new carpet. I hadn’t gone through the chest’s contents in decades, and it wasn’t something I was eager to begin.

I was prepared for the rush of pleasure and pain memories of lost loved ones bring. Or so I thought. As I picked up Mother’s glasses, I pictured them sliding down her small nose. Holding Dad’s pocket knife, I could see him eagerly cutting the ribbon on Christmas packages. I read newspaper clippings, fragile with age, and smiled at fifty-year-old photographs which captured moments of our lives, and I was doing fine. Then I stumbled onto Grandmother’s red leather billfold.

A zipper runs around three sides of it, and on a whim, I pulled the tab. Inside, I found two things, a picture of me and a one dollar bill. What I saw was love.

Grandfather had been a successful lawyer, until the depression hit, and clients stopped arriving at his office door. He died in the mid-thirties, without insurance or savings, and Grandmother came to live with Mom and Dad and me. I was three.

Mom always worked, and when I rushed home from school to the smell of chocolate cupcakes baking, it was Grandmother who had them waiting for me. When I ran inside with a skinned knee, she was always there with a Band-Aid and a soft lap to crawl up on for comfort. She was a formidable opponent at Tiddly Winks and Chinese Checkers. That single dollar bill, which had been resting undiscovered in her billfold since she died in 1950, reminded me of all of those things. But most of all, it brought back memories of birthdays and Christmases when I was little.
Grandmother had no money except for her monthly $12 Old Age Assistance check. Yet on holidays she always hugged me and handed me a card, with a dollar bill tucked inside. I hurried off to the dime store, where it bought ribbons for my hair, or a shiny metal bracelet, or a huge box of crayons.

Here was one more present from my grandmother, a final dollar that said, “I love you.” But what could I buy with a dollar today? I wanted something I could keep, something that would remain a visible symbol of her love. Dime stores aren’t around any more, but away I drove to the Dollar General Store.

For an hour, I browsed. I found colorful candles, but once burned, they would be gone. A few paperback books were available, but none seemed right for the occasion. Even little ceramic figurines were two or three dollars, and I was determined to spend no more than the dollar she had left me.

Then I spotted a trivet with a white wooden border surrounding a tile, on which was painted, “Happiness is home made.” On the face of the tile were several pictures. One was a pie, which reminded me of all the blackberry cobblers she baked, and the peach pies, and the apple pies, because she knew they were my favorites. I thought of how she used to set aside strips of dough to sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and bake as my extra treat. I remembered the holiday seasons when she stirred up luscious rolls of white divinity candy, with pecans instead of walnuts, just for me.

Home made? Dainty doll clothes, sewn by hand, turned up beneath the Christmas tree. I still have a peach satin nightgown trimmed in lace, her creation for a doll named Betty. Long ago, she made quilts with tiny, careful stitches, to set aside for my hope chest.

I brought the trivet to the cash register, along with several other items I needed to buy, and told the cashier I wanted to pay for it separately. I showed him the dollar and explained why it was special to me. He rang up the trivet, took the worn bill, which had not been spent in over fifty years, and didn’t even charge me tax.

That dollar bought a lot. It bought long-buried memories, and the certain sense that I’d just been given a warm hug.

Our grandkids will be coming to dinner soon. I’ll bake a pie and set it on the trivet to place before them. It will remind me that I was loved, and it will say to them that love endures. Passed from one generation to the next, it goes on forever.

CHRISTMAS ON FOURTEENTH STREET

Share with me a time remembered. Thanksgiving has passed and my favorite time of year has come. It’s early December in the 1930’s.

The country is beginning to stir and emerge from the Great Depression. Our radios, crackling with static, bring us from Europe the ominous ranting of a madman, but Europe is far away, and Hitler is their problem.

We twist our dials to Fibber McGee or Amos and Andy. I’m six years old.
Home is a two-story frame house on Fourteenth Street in Oklahoma City. In front is a porch, where we sit on hot summer nights, watching the fireflies and talking, until a breeze stirs and we’re cool enough to sleep. A tall oak tree stands in the yard, spreading shade where I play. Out back is a pear tree that pours forth fragrant showers of blossoms in the spring, and later, more pears than we can eat.

The house is in a fading part of town, but it’s solid and well kept. We rent the upper floor from Miss Hostetler for twenty-two dollars a month.
As you enter, you see a landing above with the only stained glass window I’ve seen outside of church. When Mama calls me in to supper in the evening, the sunlight shining through the window above it makes rainbows on the stairs.

My special place is a walk-in closet, where I perch on top of the rollaway bed stored there when I want to be alone and dream. Our ceilings are high, and the kitchen has space enough for cooking, eating and playing dominoes.

We have an attic, too, filled with boxes, trunks, and hints of mystery, where I sometimes choose to play. Not always, because I must cross its length to the light switch. More often now I’m brave enough to walk through the dark and turn it on. There, on rainy afternoons, I look at boxes of pictures from years past, or crank up the Victrola and listen to scratchy records like “Ida, Sweet As Apple Cider.”

Now December is here. I ask Mama if it isn't time to buy the tree.
She turns from her Saturday morning chores to consider my question. She’s warm and soft and smells like vanilla when we hug. We hug often. Generous with smiles, she’s smiling now, and the excitement in her blue eyes matches my own.

“Well, if we’re going to put up the tree today, we’d better go find it,” she says. Christmas is Mama’s favorite time of year, too. No sooner does she speak than I’m dashing off, calling to Daddy and Grandma, urging them to hurry. Daddy goes out to start the Chevy, which is older than I am and is slow to get going in this weather. At last, the engine turns over, and we’re on our way.

Winters in Oklahoma are bleak and gray. Flatness stretches as far as you can see, with nothing to stop the sharp, uncompromising wind, whistling all the way down from Canada. Our lungs ache when we breathe and our bones feel brittle with the cold.

At the Christmas tree lot, Daddy stamps his feet and blows on his hands. His nose and cheeks are turning pink, but his eyes are shining. Hazel eyes, the same as mine. He’s a slight man, though he seems tall to me, with dark hair thinning on top.

A sharp division of opinion exists concerning which tree we’ll choose. Its selection is a matter of principle, and the same discussion arises each year, with Mama and I holding out for a tree tall enough to touch the ceiling. Daddy and Grandma want a smaller tree, requiring less space and fewer of our carefully allotted dollars. As always, Mama and I win. We knew we would.

We carry our prize home tied with rope to the top of our car, and bear the heavy green pine into the living room, where it fills the air with the fragrant scent of Christmas.

Before we trim the tree, Mama makes cups of steaming hot chocolate to warm our chilled bones. She melts marshmallows on top and I lick the sticky sweetness from the corners of my mouth. Dusty, the small brown dog I adopted at the SPCA, hobbles back and forth, sniffing the tree and wagging her tail. When I brought her home, crippled in one hip and needing shots for her liver, she ran straight under Grandma’s bed and wet the floor. It was a questionable beginning.

Nevertheless, when my folks saw she was the dog I wanted rather than the cuddly puppy they expected me to pick, they stretched our cramped budget to pay for her medicine. Now she’s part of our family. She snuggles into Grandma’s lap, her soft brown eyes watching our every movement.

From a corner of the attic, Daddy pulls the box of decorations we packed away last year. While he strings the lights, we unwrap each bauble. I hunt for my favorites, and finding them is like meeting old friends after an absence.

“Oh, look, this pink one is broken,” I say.

Mama shows me how to turn it so only the good side shows, and it is as beautiful as ever.

When each ornament is in place, Grandma says, “Wait. Let me do the icicles.” She insists upon doing this job herself, to make certain no one tosses them in a bunch to land willy-nilly on the branches. Traces of Grandma’s youthful beauty remain in the erect, graceful way she moves and the delicate skin she still tints with rouge.

One by one, she picks the icicles from the paper where they have lain pressed since last year, and as she places the last strands, we stand hushed and proud. With lights ablaze and star touching the ceiling, this is our finest tree ever.

Daddy moves to the piano. His hands know the keys, though he never read a note of music. “Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” The music floods the room, and we begin to sing, “Let earth receive her King.”
His tenor is clear and strong, and he holds back nothing. With heads bent close, we harmonize, smiling at one another as the familiar carols follow one by one: “Silent Night,” “Away in a Manger,” “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem.”

Although Mama tries, she says she can’t carry a tune in a basket. Never mind. What she can’t contribute in sound, she provides in enthusiasm.
The love we feel for one another surrounds and cradles us all. If ever I have known a moment when life was perfect, it is now.

However, there’s much to do before Christmas. First, I must think about presents. Dusty is easiest. Her gift is always a huge bone, which comes from the butcher at the grocery where Daddy is manager of the produce department.

My folks had their own grocery once. They showed me its picture.
They lost it during the Great Depression when they wouldn’t deny food on their shelves to hungry customers who couldn’t pay. Now Daddy works for his Uncle John, who owns Freeman-Langston Grocery, and Mama says we should be grateful he has a job in these hard times.
We make most of our presents for each other. Using patterns she cuts from newspapers, Mama sews for me, turning flowered feed sacks into pretty dresses with rick rack and ruffles. Grandma stitches a dainty wardrobe for my doll.

My gift to Mama is a recipe book, which I’m being careful to paste, cut, and color as well as I know how. I can’t wait to see her open it.
Daddy gave me a quarter, too, so I can buy her a present at the dry goods section of Freeman-Langston, the only store I know. Finding the perfect offering takes a long time. At last, I spot a blue organdy apron, edged in white. Blue is Mama’s favorite color, and the apron looks as if it were made for her.

When a saleswoman smiles and asks if she can help me, I present my quarter and say, “I’ll take this apron, please.”

She tries to direct me to other choices, but I’m unshakable, and keep stretching out my hand, offering the quarter. Another saleswoman whispers with her for a moment, then the exchange is made. I clutch that apron beneath my arm and march away.

Years will pass before I learn that its price was really a dollar, and that the saleswomen refused Daddy’s attempt to give them the difference when he learned what had happened.

Over three decades will pass before she’s gone and I stumble upon a worn, faded blue apron among my mother’s treasured keepsakes. With tears stinging my eyes, I bury my face in it, hoping to find the faint scent of vanilla.

Daddy’s present is a cigar box I’m decorating to hold those things he tosses on top of his dresser. Mama’s showing me how to cover the top with paper thick enough to keep the words “Dutch Master” from showing through. Then, I’ll paste pictures from magazines over that, and she’ll help me cover the whole thing with varnish.

Grandma’s gift is sachets, made from cloves and rose petals I’ve saved since summer and labored to sew inside small squares of cloth trimmed with ribbon.

The promising smells of baking fill the house. I stir a batch of peanut butter cookies, and Mama shows me how to press them down and make a cross with a fork. She cuts sugar cookies into star shapes, and we spread them with pink and green icing, occasionally eating one before it reaches the cookie jar.

Daddy cracks pecans for Mama’s fudge and Grandma’s divinity, whistling while he watches the pile of nutmeats grow higher. They form the candy into long rolls and wrap it in waxed paper. It’s just too good to last until Christmas, but we still have colorful ribbon candy from the store.

We get into the car one evening and drive to Nichols Hills to see the wealthy people’s homes, lighted and decorated for the newspaper’s Christmas competition. Driving slowly through the streets, gazing in amazement at the wonderland before us, we feel no envy. Who could be happier than we?

On Christmas Eve, Daddy reads “The Night before Christmas,” then Mama sends me off to bed. Should I go to sleep so tomorrow will come sooner, or stay awake for a glimpse of Santa Claus? He‘s sure to come. The letter I placed under the rug for him disappeared ages ago, so Santa’s bound to know I’ve been good this year. I press my feet to the brick Mama heated and wrapped in a towel to keep me warm, and strain to hear sleigh bells before I drift into sleep.

Christmas morning starts early. The minutes crawl as I wait in bed until Daddy lights the stove and Mama makes chocolate and coffee. Dusty is hopping around in giddy anticipation, never taking her eyes off the bone she’s found on the tree.

Santa Claus has come while I slept, and my joy is complete.
Carefully, we unwrap our presents one at a time, to make the fun last longer, and salvage what ribbon and paper we can for next year. I’m proud of the gifts I placed beneath the tree. I put two bows on some, to show extra love, and I always paste on lots of Christmas seals, firmly convinced that more is better.

At last, in a clutter of presents and wrappings, Christmas morning is over, and we’ve exchanged hugs and thanks. I gather my gifts and carry them off to my closet, where I can savor them. Dusty, carrying her bone, squeezes in beside me.

As Mama and Grandma begin a flurry of activity in the kitchen. there’s a knock at the door, and it’s Mr. Red Beck, who joins us every year for Christmas dinner.

He’s a raw-boned jovial man, with the weathered face and hands of a farmer, which he is. They met when Daddy was buying produce for the store at the Public Market and Mr. Beck was selling his crop. He has no family and my folks can’t bear to see anyone lonely at Christmas. Whatever we have, they say, there’s always enough to share with a friend.

Mr. Beck presses a silver dollar into my hand with a smile and a “Merry Christmas!”

Only at Christmas does Grandma set the table with her fragile Haviland china and pale pink crystal, remnants of a more prosperous time. There’s a tantalizing smell of turkey and dressing as we finally sit down to dinner. I spoon giblet gravy over a heaping mound of potatoes. Bright red cranberry sauce and stuffed green celery add Christmas color.

When we’ve eaten our fill and haven’t space for one more bite of pumpkin pie, Daddy raps on his glass and opens the Book before him.

“We mustn’t ever forget,” he says, “what makes Christmas so special is love, God’s love for us and our love for one another. Love lasts forever.”
Then he begins to read the words I know by heart, the words that tell of the birth of a Baby. At last, he closes the Book with, “God bless us, every one.”

Grandma’s clock strikes. The hour is growing late, later than I know. The hours strike away to become months, and then years. There are other Christmas seasons for the four of us, happy, loving times.

But one day Grandma catches a cold, which gets worse and never goes away. She lies unknowing for a while, and then she’s gone. Gone, too, is my childhood.

Dad is next. Without warning, there’s a heart attack and not even a few moments to say good-bye.

Incredibly, there comes then a Christmas without Mother. I don’t put up a tree. Finding myself looking through a rack of dresses in her size, I hurry away, stifling a sob.

Alone, I try to escape the memories that make Christmas too painful to bear, once even flying to Morocco, hoping to find no Christian celebration in an Arab land. When I get off the plane in Casablanca, I hear Jingle Bells.

On a December day, I stand for the first time in decades outside the house on Fourteenth Street. The oak tree I loved is gone, and the house is shabby, with peeling paint and rickety banisters. A sign in front reads “Day Care Center.” Eventually, a woman appears, frowning, and asks if I want something.

No answer comes, and I turn away.

Only the merciless wind is the same. My loneliness is as gnawing and bitter as the cold. Then, without voices or visions, but perhaps through some wisdom they nurtured in me long ago, I sense them near.
“Come away. There’s nothing left of us there. Soon it will be Christmas. Don’t you know the meaning of that day?”

I try to remember. Then, from the past, come long forgotten words, filling me with joy....

“For God so loved the world...”

At last, I understand what Dad meant that Christmas years ago. The love we all shared is forever, as warm and real as when we were together. That is the great gift of Christmas.

Today, when I am years and miles from Fourteenth Street, once again it’s Christmas. I look about me at beloved faces, glowing with excitement. Husband, children, grandchildren.

Now, I’m the one who reads, “And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night....” The words are familiar, and they fill my heart with peace. When I close the Book there seems to come a gentle whisper, “God bless us, every one.”

I have only a couple of cousins left now, and I wrote this poem to express my feelings of loss.

Sole Survivor

Only I am left to mourn you.
Only I still speak your names.
After me, there will be no one
Who remembers whence we came.

Oh, my family! My people!
So many tales to tell
Of funny things and brave things
You did--- I know them well.

But who will tell your stories
After me? After me,
Could it be then that forever
All you were will cease to be?

I bore no child to follow,
To grow up warm and true
No child to pass along the love,
That I received from you.

I can build for you no building,
No monument to last,
All I have is this brief moment,
And the hope, before it's past

My life may touch some other,
With all you gave to mine.
Perhaps then, what was best in you
May live to challenge time.