Christmas Memories and Miracles

When I had my transplant at Moffitt Cancer Center one of the rejection side effects was heavy duty chills called “Rigors” (think Rigor Mortis). I was freezing so badly in August I couldn’t hold onto a cup of coffee. The chill reminded me of growing up in the Adirondacks in the 60s and 70s when it was always cold, even in the Summer. Although I’ve lived in warm weather for over half my life since, at Christmas I still think about stories from the past involving cold weather and they seem to have the fondest memories for me. One habit I can’t break, however, is dumping out boots before putting them on. When I was in fourth grade my Grandmother Lawson made my Dad move her old player piano into our cellar. Little did we know it was filled with rats so we had a rat infestation for the holidays. To be fair, rats get cold too, so they would crawl into our snow boots to get warm. It only took once to learn to dump your boots out before putting them on. That’s why I prefer flip flops now.

As I grew older it didn’t get any warmer, so as a high school student, you had to create your own fun outside. We didn’t get cable TV until I was in college, so there were only so many episodes of Across The Fence you could watch broadcasted out of Vermont. Bored to tears, one Friday night John Rayno, Joe Corbo, Bud Dickerson and I went snowman hunting in my mom’s paneled Gran Torino station wagon. We each had a machete (didn’t you when you were 17?) and went cruising the neighborhoods, lopping off snowmen heads. The back of the station wagon was almost filled to the ceiling with snowmen heads, carrots, and eyes made out of coal when flashing blue lights pulled us over. My promise to get us out of the jam fell apart when Officer Tom Ladue scanned the back of the wagon with his flashlight and didn't even blink at my bull. “We heard all about you guys tonight from all over town.” He made us return all the heads to the houses we hit and turn in the machetes. I was going to launch into a tirade about private property seizure laws and how the police should focus their energy on real crime like bank robberies, but I caught myself remembering there hadn’t been a bank heist in Ticonderoga since the Civil War. Alas, my friends and I all eventually grew up and out, but I still think of cold memories at Christmas.

In 1987, a year after Diane and I were married, we were hit with my first bout with cancer, treated with six months of radiation. A side effect of that much radiation is it lowers your chances of having children. Our first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, so our spirits were dimmed that Christmas. The next Christmas, however, Diane was pregnant with Devin in December, so we couldn’t travel to New York for the holidays. We were depressed not being with our families, cooped up in an apartment in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was pretty cold that year, so a couple of days before Christmas we bundled up and went out to dinner by ourselves. We were trying hard to lift our spirits with old Christmas stories (snowmen hunting, boot rats, getting hypothermia, etc.) but nothing worked. Diane (who is a force of nature in and of herself) blurted out, “I just wish it would snow right now, that would make me feel a lot better.”  I rolled my eyes, but within a minute snow began pouring out of the sky and the entire restaurant, patrons and employees alike, emptied into the parking lot to look up at the sky and watch a snowfall in St. Petersburg, Florida. It hasn’t snowed in St. Pete since, but Devin was born that Christmas Day. Because of that special night, I spend a lot of time reflecting every Christmas on the good things that have happened to me in the cold rather than the bad. It gives me joy and hope I’ll be here again next year. Peace!