“You are just like your dad,” my mom says, smiling. Even though my dad passed away in 2020, she still speaks of him in the present tense. And that’s how I think of him. He never really left.
An elderly couple walks by on their way out the door. My mom compliments the woman on her colorful scarf. The woman’s face lights up. “Thank you!” she says. “Merry Christmas!”
In fact, there are plenty of “Merry Christmases” to go around, random greetings from one stranger to another as they pass each other on their way in or out the door. Just hearing the words said aloud is a comfort. People are capable of kindnesses and small considerations even in passing.
Our table is rife with family talk. Stories from childhood, often from my brother Dan and me discussing mischievous adventures and disasters that two boys are capable of growing up together — like the time in Peoria, Illinois, when we collected discarded Christmas trees in our neighborhood, piled them into our garage, and took turns jumping on the haphazard stack through a hole in the roof. How on earth did we survive our childhood?
Mom remembers being the youngest in her family, and her brother Mack who died in Iwo Jima during World War II. Talk turns to one of her brothers-in-law, Olin, who fought in the European theater. He made it out alive with a collection of battlefield souvenirs accumulated throughout his tour of duty; these would later fascinate Dan and me when we would visit him and my Aunt Jo in Mishawaka, Indiana.
Although I don’t say this, it occurs to me that World War II casts a long shadow over our parents’ generation. Jan’s dad served in the Navy during the war; his brother, Robert, was in the Army and perished during the invasion of Leyte. It is not uncommon for my own generation to be party to stories like those told around the Christmas table. But soon, those stories will no longer be retold as our own generation passes on.