The Last Christmas

The last Christmas with my mother was in 1960.  She was 52 and not doing very well.  I was 14 and worried.

Instead of the usual live tree that we put up in the big living room window, she got one of those new-fangled aluminum trees lit up by the colored disk that turned around and around.  We went outside to see how it looked at dark.  I took a picture of it so it was immortalized.  It was hideous.

My mother just couldn't do the things she had always done, but she tried.  I'm sure she made some cookies, she ordered presents for us, and she put out some of the decorations like the white reindeer on the mantle.  No matter what, there was a sadness about that Christmas because anyone with eyes could see that my mother was fading.

We all have have this kind of story to tell -- the "lasts."  The last time for this, the last time for that, and we tend to remember because deep inside of ourselves, no matter how much denial we are working on, we knew that all was not well. 

Christmas was by far my mother's favorite holiday, and she usually went overboard.  There was Fannie Farmer candy hidden away somewhere so it wouldn't be eaten before Christmas Eve at least.  There were her marvelous cookies stored in a huge porcelain roaster.  There were the presents that she tried so hard to get just right.  There was a box of candy for the teacher at school and for the nun from CCD.  My mother loved to give! 

Yesterday they were talking about the lessons that we can learn from Nelson Mandela of South Africa.  He was asked during an interview in prison many years ago how it was that he could continue and he said they could not take away his mind.  A gentleman from South Africa said that Mandela's life was shaped by an African way of life that says more or less, "I am among others."  I'm paraphrasing here, but rather than the isolated view of, "I think therefore I am," this philosphy emphasizes how well we relate to those around us.

My mother must have embraced that kind of thinking because no matter where she went, she never forgot the people around her by being self-absorbed.  It might be African or Christian, but we do spend our lives around others.  How do we relate?

When I see the aluminum trees these days, it doesn't bring the same reaction that it did in the years following her death in March 1961.  Because I know where my mother is, and she is full of joy for her favorite holiday, Christmas, is coming.