Mantle disornamented

"Took down Christmas" this afternoon. It's a strange expression meaning the packing away of Christmas decorations for another year, but it sounds like a wrestling term. Indeed, I am struggling with emotions as this year ends. Putting away the ornaments I had set on the fireplace mantle really got me weepy.



With three full-grown sons and their friends hanging out in the condo living room watching bowl games, we need the space taken by the Christmas tree. The tree ornaments are such a powerful connection to Fritzi that it's tough to put them away for another year. It's good to know that unpacking each decoration next December will be like opening the windows on an Advent calendar to find the joy and generosity of the Christmas season.

For twenty-five years, or basically all my adult life, my mother and I shared a joy of creating or finding perfect ornaments to remember the year. Each ornament I wrap and pack away is a combination of holiday cheer, charm bracelet, time capsule, and childhood scrapbook. We have ornaments to remember teddy bears, windmills, charcoal grills, ice-skating, school bus rides, fishing trips, firetrucks, 10K races, and aquarium fishes. Many remind me of the intense and loving involvement my mother had with her little grandsons, and her appreciation of the fine young men they became.

Someday these sons will create new homes and families. I will say a sad farewell to the ornaments Fritzi chose to acknowledge each boy's accomplishments when they migrate from our Christmas tree to theirs. I pray that each son will choose a partner who appreciates such simple and meaningful family traditions. I hope each of Fritzi's grandsons will feel her love and pride in them every Christmas.

Grief sneaks up

Sometimes it's a flavor or a smell. Other times it's the news. Thanks to a dear, watchful friend, today it's an op-ed. My buddy caught Maureen Dowd's return to the New York Times opinion page, and her wonderful column about her mother, Peggy Dowd. I wasn't expecting the column to be a eulogy as I read along learning about this alert, informed, creative woman who wanted to be a writer.

Tonight I feel honored that Fritzi considered being our mom a meaningful career and performed it with such generosity, practicality, respect, firmness, and love. How did she understand the importance of the Sunday family rituals, and celebrate them with us so consistently? Our family was anchored by the Sunday lunch of crackers and cheese in the living room, and the Sunday evening broiling of steak. We knew what to expect, and what behaviour was expected of us. Sunday was not set aside in the church-going sense, but it was always our special family time.

NASA launched the space shuttle Discovery yesterday morning. Fritzi spent a fabulous Grandma Day in Omaha, January 28, 1986, with precocious three year-old Jeffy, baby Mike, and I. We were so lucky that Mom was able to drive up and spend relaxed days with us often. That particular day, as Mom got settled in her car to drive back to Lincoln, I opened the evening Omaha World-Herald. Challenger had exploded on its launch. I can still see the five p.m. winter sun on the snow as I showed Mom the headline through her car window. Our reactions were mirror images of shock as our sense of a perfect day spent together was unable to accept this news.