• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

William Lobb

Author

  • ABOUT
  • BOOKS
    • The Third Step
    • The Three Lives of Richie O’Malley
  • RESOURCES
  • BLOG

Happy Christmas, Ma

December 10, 2020 by wlobb 1 Comment

I sit three feet from the box of wax candles in shapes of snowmen and Santa Claus and pine trees, and I remember the challenges you had with pudding and names and words last Christmas.

I left up the gaudy, fake, three-foot plastic tree in your room, the lights still on, until you died in February. There wasn’t a lot left for you to enjoy, but you loved your all blue lights and silver balls. It’s my sincere hope the last thing you saw before you last closed your eyes were those lights reflected in plastic and chrome shine of those ornaments.

I realize a fake tree was a horrible violation, but it was the best I could do; nursing home rules, not mine, Ma.

Every Christmas of my young life was a tribute to JJ Newberry’s and Woolworth’s and plastic and tinsel and various and other tchotchke. I’m left, this year, to make some kind of sense of, and peace with, these boxes of plastic ivy, red and white stockings and assorted reindeer and fat men with rosy cheeks.

I lost a lot of the Jimmy Stewart, It’s a Wonderful Life, Bing Crosby, White Christmas, the year my father died, but as broke as you were, physically, emotionally and financially, you soldiered through.

The last month of the year was your time and your tree needed to be real and covered with all that stuff that belonged in a dumpster somewhere, but has found it’s way in my attic. I never told you when you were alive, Ma, but I admired your courage and resolve above all.

It’s poignant and fitting and perfect the best memory I have with you was drinking Canadian Whiskey by one of your trees. The ice in your glass clinking as you sipped your drink, the blue and silver reflection shining in your eyes. Maybe the only time I really saw you smile.

Happy Christmas, Ma.

Filed Under: Author Notes Tagged With: #bookstagram #writersofinstagram #writing #booklover #bibliophile #williamlobb #bookworm #igbooks #bookworms #bookish #booknerdigans

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Mark Baskerville says

    December 10, 2020 at 7:23 pm

    Happy Christmas, brother

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Sign Up, Keep Up!

Sign up to receive occasional rants and read the prologue of The Three Lives of Richie O'Malley FREE!

Connect with me:

The Third Step Trailer

Footer

Recent Posts

  • We Need Men Like These Men
  • The Fourth Step – A searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
  • New York, 2020
  • Emmett Till
  • Train Smoke
  • On the passing of Rush Limbaugh:
  • Oh, Canada…
  • Happy Christmas, Ma

SIGN UP, KEEP UP!

Sign up to receive occasional rants and read the prologue of The Three Lives of Richie O'Malley FREE!

Copyright © 2021 William Lobb · Created by Ash Media Empire · On WordPress