A cliché bout of cold feet, that’s all that was back there, I reassure myself. Tomorrow night, I’ll pop the most important question in my life to the woman I love. She’ll say yes.
And I’ll have one more reason to love Christmas.
FIVE
KATHERINE
December 23, 11:27 a.m.
My dad died on Christmas.
Not just Christmastime—thank you, stupid “Silver Bells”—but actual Christmas. December 25, nine years ago.
The logical part of me knows that the specific date shouldn’t matter. Realistically, would the holidays hurt less if he passed on December 22? Would this time of year be any less painful if he slipped away on December 26? Would my heart have felt less broken if he died in February? Or June?
I doubt it.
Rationally, it just shouldn’t matter what day of the year my dad finally decided to let go of his pain, to give in to the cancer.
But somehow, the day does matter. The specificity of the date feels particularly savage because there’s this very unique sort of countdown effect that comes into play in December.
Advent calendars. Those construction paper chains that kids make. The chalkboard displays outside neighborhood bars declaring, “Only 6 days till Christmas!”
Because nothing captures that holiday spirit like fifty-cent wings, I guess.
But anyway, the point is there’s an entire season built around the march toward Christmas Day. And it feels like a ticking time bomb of my grief.
A day-by-day countdown to the day when I’m guaranteed to hurt the most.
Every year, I tell myself it’ll be a little easier than last year. And perhaps that’s true. There’s a comfortable resignation that comes with the certainty of knowing I survived it last year, so I can survive it this year too.
In that way, perhaps the “countdown” effect actually works in my favor. It gives me time to prepare.
In theory, anyway.
In reality, there’s no amount of mental preparation that can properly brace me for the onslaught of memories that hit me on Christmas Day. Reliving those last, final moments? When Dad had enough?
Well.
Christmas sucks.
But here’s the kicker. My dad loved Christmas.
I mean, sure, yeah, lots of people love Christmas. But my dad really loved it. We’re talking the kind of enthusiasm rivaled only by Will Ferrell’s Buddy the Elf and kids under the age of ten. And once upon a time, I loved it because he loved it—and because he was all I had.
I grew up in Fort Wayne, on a cozy cul-de-sac that was probably a little slice of suburban heaven when it came up in the fifties. Alas, by the time I came around, it was a little rough around the edges. The trees headed toward rot, the street potholed, the paint on the houses was more chipped than not.
Still, it was the kind of place where everyone took the time to mow their lawn and pull their weeds. And even more telling, it was the kind of place where if you had to skip the weekly mowing due to a double shift at work, your neighbor would do it for you. And when that neighbor’s uncle was in the hospital, you made damn sure you returned the favor.
“Tight-knit,” Dad used to say about our little cul-de-sac. “We take care of each other.”
I’m sure he was right about that, but I always felt a little apart when it came to the neighborhood. The loose thread in that tight-knit little community.
Not because I was a bit of a weirdo, though I totally was. It was more that my age fell into an unfortunate “no-man’s-land.” A few years behind me were the “little kids.” They traveled as a pack and were always together.
A few years ahead of me, there were the “big kids.” They traveled as a pack and were always together.
I was smack in the middle of the two groups. I traveled alone and had no one.
I was basically like a middle child, except without the benefit of siblings.
I didn’t mind so much. Another personality might have been lonely, but I was a pretty solitary kid even before I realized that I didn’t quite belong anywhere. It’s hard not to be solitary when you’re an only child whose mom died in a car accident when you were four and whose dad has worked two jobs your entire existence.
Or maybe I was just born reclusive and a little prickly.
It doesn’t matter. Whether nature or nurture, I was perfectly happy getting through childhood on a steady supply of mystery novels and peanut butter cookies, which I’d load into the basket of my red bike as I escaped to whatever nearby park or pond ensured I could be left alone to daydream.
But at Christmas?
Christmas was different.
Dad and I never took summer vacations, and he never took sick days. Not back then, anyway. Apparently, the universe decided to gift him with excellent health as a young man in exchange for a whopper diagnosis in middle age.
But anyway, the point is, Dad would save up any and every vacation day so he could take off to coincide with my school break.
Christmas glory ensued. All of the usual things, really, but they didn’t feel usual. They felt special. Magical.
We baked really mediocre sugar cookies. Watched the same old holiday movies year after year, relishing the classics （How the Grinch Stole Christmas, obviously）， and gleefully disparaged any newcomers to the Christmas movie scene that dared to try to shove their way onto our carefully curated Christmas classics list.
Our neighbors were big into Christmas too, so everyone decorated their houses and yards. Ours was never the best—money was a little too tight to compete with the full Nativity scene on the McNalley lawn or the Kimmers’ light-up Santa sleigh with all the reindeer.
But, man, how I loved those long, cold December afternoons. I’d spend ages getting the big red bow on our front door wreath just right. Always a fresh wreath—Dad was very anti faux greenery. The bow never looked as lavish and poofy as I wanted, but he still declared it “best on the block” every year.
Then, with frozen fingers, we’d set about hanging the lights. I remember those moments as the best parts of my childhood. Even when he handed me a big tangled ball of last year’s lights. Maybe especially then because the tighter the knot, the more time we got to spend together.
I think he felt the same because when he climbed the ladder to staple the lights above the garage, he would redo it a dozen times to get it perfectly straight. He’d insist that he needed me to follow along beside him, holding the tail of the lights to keep it from dragging.
I know now it was never about getting a straight line. I probably knew it then too. But a chance to talk to him about what a waste of time I thought art class was, and my dreams of being a lawyer, and to state my case on why we should get a dog, or a cat, hell, even a bird . . .
We never talked about boys. Obviously. He didn’t ask, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him that the handful of crushes I experienced were painfully intense. And even more painfully unrequited.
So, yeah, I loved those outdoor decorating sessions.
But the shining star of memories? Decorating the tree.
It was our tradition to wait until the second Sunday in December. Never before, never after. There was a Christmas tree lot an hour out of town. There were plenty of spots closer to our house, but my dad used to work with Big Rob, who owned this one, so we always got a Big Rob tree.
Every year, I’d want the biggest tree. And every year, my dad said he did too . . . before suddenly being disappointed when he realized that our ceilings were only so high and directing me to one with an appropriate height.