Over the many years weve spent together in this and other clean, well-lighted spaces, Ive written thousands of words about death and dying and how often they can obscure the glow of the holidays.
And thanks to you and your letters and postcards and phone calls and emails, I know that Im hardly alone.
That, I suppose, is a great part of which makes this season so vital and so special; that is, the notion that no matter how horrible and painful its been in the past, there is always the chance to make someone elses journey though the darkness a little less sad as they confront it today.
Sure Charles Dickens had it right when he created A Christmas Carol, still my favorite story of the season. In it time becomes thrillingly and frightening elastic, and we go along for the ride as Ebenezer Scrooge journeys from one disappointing moment to another and another even as he confronts his own tombstone and is unmourned and unmissed.
Just another poor human being who got caught up in his own pitiable shortfalls, one more wretched soul condemned to the what-might-have-been pit of the doomed.
It is Dickenss peculiar genius born of equal measures social injustice and seasonal superficiality that renders the tale more than the sum of its Bah Humbug! parts and elevates A Christmas Carol into the highest echelon of literary achievement.
Which came as somewhat of a surprise to its creator, I daresay. The landscape of immortal literature is littered lamentably by those whose works made barely a ripple when their writers still breathed but upon whom miles of words of praise have been penned since their passing.
But Charles Dickens was no Edgar Allan Poe.
He was a whip-smart self-promoter who understood the changing times, both in England and on the Continent, and who further grasped decades before the Beatles birthed the British Invasion that the Colonies provided fertile soil to those who had the right seeds to sow.
You might scoff at the comparison of, say, Oliver Twist to Twist and Shout, but thats my opinion, and Im sticking with it.
Besides the Beatles were justly famous for their annual Christmas messages to their fans as a quick Google search will illustrate even as you might be too young to remember them as they aired on AM radio every December through most of the 60s.
But there I go again, showing my age.
Still, nothing wrong with telling the truth, I believe, unless a white lie serves your purposes better.
Allow me to illuminate that rather slippery concept.
Suppose your girlfriend has just opened a present from you on Christmas morning.
Say its a sweater. And you insist that she try it on.
(Thats a rookie mistake, I know, but you have to consider how long ago said presentation took place and how much Ive learned since then.)
So she disappears for a few minutes as you prepare yourself for what the sales lady promised would be a perfect moment, only to discover that your girlfriend looks absolutely awful in that sweater.
What do you say?
Do you tell her the brutal truth that shed look better in a belted grainsack or stifle the gag reflex and blurt out a harmless lie?
Of course, you spare her feelings.
Have you told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
No!
But have you lived to lie another day?
Christmas is a time to conceal all manner of ugly realities under a cloak of kindness, one that provides shelter from the storm poised outside nearly every front door of nearly every house. Theres something very fragile about the peace on earth, goodwill to man patina that provides only the slimmest sliver of protection from the howling winds gathering outside nearly every home.
Am I suggesting a total and reckless disregard for the truth?
Of course not: That would be cowardly and irresponsible.
However, I believe that if you choose to answer a question like do I look fat in this? honestly, well, youre on your own.
Same with Christmas dinner and a side dish you think might be scalloped potatoes but might actually be something in the fruit family, maybe even an iffy dessert that found its way into the rotation too early.
Best to just pass the communal dish and stick to what you know, preferably the stuff you prepared yourself.
For several years after my mother died, I chose to stay away from any and all holiday celebrations, preferring my own company to that of friends especially girlfriends not to mention that of my family. It just seemed less intrusive somehow to keep to myself on Christmas Day, firing up the grill and having a perfectly prepared T-bone steak, sautéed mushrooms and a fully dressed baked potato, all the while listening to the Time-Life collection of Yuletide classics including Ill Be Home for Christmas with the angelic Karen Carpenter on lead vocals.
As far as I was concerned, this made a world of sense because no one wants to be sad on Christmas even though many, many have been and will continue to be.
Im totally convinced that Mom, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer around Labor Day, did her absolute best to hang on long enough to spare her husband and children the memory of her dying on Christmas.
I cannot imagine the strength that took.
But that was my mother: no sacrifice too great for those she loved.
When I look back on that holiday season, its not the chemotherapy that sapped what was left of her remaining energy, nor the certainty that at the age of 24 I was about to lose my mother.
No, what I remember most vividly is that we all did our best to make it all seem like just another family Christmas.
Of course, that was a lie, but again what point would telling the awful truth have served? None.
So we had the same Christmas Eve meal the one centered around Moms tuna noodle casserole that wed had since I was a kid. Only this time it was up to me to cook it.
That went OK. I think.
And then it was time for the treasure hunt, but instead of clues sending one another all over the house in search of a present, we played a version of Twenty Questions so that we could all stay put around Moms bed.
In our family the reading of A Certain Small Shepherd had become an immovable tradition, and we passed the book from hand to hand, just as we always had.
Finally, to bring us all back to Charles Dickens, we listened to the radio version of A Christmas Carol starring Ronald Colman, the record player having been moved into her bedroom a first and the candles lighted in the otherwise darkness, just as tradition dictated.
That was the last time we were together as a family, Mom having been taken back to the hospital the next morning.
We lost her on New Years Day 1981, nearly 45 years ago.
But mostly were long past the tears and will again, as became our custom, remember Mom with the same traditions in the same order on the most holy night of the year.
A belated Merry Christmas to all of you and a sincere thank you for being there for me all these years.
