(re-posted from Bubblews, originally posted in parts)
Since I'm never entirely sure what we're "supposed to be" posting on
Bubblews, I'm REALLY not sure if I should be posting a long story; but
since I've seen that people sometimes post whole stories but break them
up into parts, I thought I may as well do that - at least this one time.
It's not that it's either such a great story or interesting story, but
every year when December comes around I tend to think up some version of
a Christmas story to write. This one isn't exactly really a Christmas
story. It's more a story about a number of months that led up to one,
particular, Christmas and something that I found under the tree that one
Christmas.
Who knows... I may start to feel uncomfortable "daring" to post a story
this long on this site, in which case I'll delete it. In the meantime,
I've decided to go ahead and post it in three parts, secure in the
knowledge that people can just not bother reading something so long if
they don't feel like it. I think most writers hope not to have any
readers get to the end of a long story and feel as if they've wasted
their time; and I'm no different. So, I'll attempt to "cover myself" by
saying that I don't offer any guarantees as far as how "worthwhile"
anyone would find this story to be, at least as far as "a good read"
goes. (Oh, the insecurities of not being sure what one "should be"
writing....)
When it comes to kids' figuring out the truth about Santa Claus, some
kids hear it from older kids. Some start to question and go on kind of a
quest to investigate for themselves. Then, too, some will ask a parent -
and ask and ask and ask, until one year the parent finds the best way
s/he can to "fess up". There are any number of ways kids figure out the
truth. In fact, there are, of course, parents who refuse to take part in
encouraging the magical belief in Santa at all.
I don't want my story here to turn into something that's about whether
it's right or wrong to encourage children to believe in Santa. Instead, I
just want it to be a story about, truth, truths, and how children can
find their own truth and truths their own way.
When December comes around I, like so many other people, inevitably find
myself thinking not only of the upcoming Christmas holiday, but about
the different Christmases of the past.
This year, for some reason, I keep thinking of the Christmas when
"Santa" left for me the "Baby Dear" doll that I, along with my
girlfriend, had so "desperately" wanted. It's not the doll that I keep
thinking of, though. It's the little, baby-pink, flannel, jacket that
was tucked next to the doll that I would later name, "Kimberly". I was
seven that Christmas, and my mother had only recently come home from an
eight-month stay at a "TB san". (For those who may not know, the "TB
san" was a hospital for patients who had Tuberculosis, and where
patients with varying degrees of illness were treated but also kept away
from everyone else who was not sick in order to prevent the spread of
the disease.)
It had been in early Spring that my mother began not feeling well,
although I didn't have any idea that she didn't feel well. Pictures of
her at that time show how rail-thin she was. Other than that, life, and
my mother, seemed pretty much great. It was an exciting time for me
because, being raised Catholic, I was about to make my First Communion
on May 2. There were "Communion classes" to attend a couple of
afternoons a week, and Sunday school was "all about" getting ready for
the special occasion. There was also that amazing cold day in March when
my mother and I deviated from the usual trips to downtown area of the
small city where we lived and made a special trip outside the city to
Jordan Marsh, which was the department store where my mother always went
when someone needed "something really nice".
As my mother flipped through the circular rack full of Communion
dresses, one dress that was particularly fancy and beautiful stood out.
It was clear that my mother thought it was beautiful, and to this day I
can feel my own, six-year-old's, eyes getting bigger when my mother
stopped flipping and cleared away any parts of other dresses that
covered up the one we were looking at. I noticed that my mother took the
price tag in her hand and looked at it for a moment before letting it
go. She said, "Do you think you'd like this one?" She then took the
dress from the rack and held it so that I could see it better. With the
dress easier for me to reach I looked at the price tag before answering.
The dress we'd discovered had touches of ribbon, lots of particularly
nice ruffles, and some tiny white buttons that were particularly pretty.
The thing was that I had a great childhood, and I'd always "had
everything"; but I was also aware that money was always kind of an
object when it came to what my parents would spend on. It wasn't that
they wanted me to be "so aware", really. It was just that I wasn't
stupid or in a coma. I'd seen how careful my mother was when she
shopped, and I certainly knew that my father worked hard not only for
his income, but just in life in general.
So, not wanting my mother to feel she had to buy a dress that was, in
fact, the most expensive dress on the rack; my reply to the question
about whether I wanted that dress was a hedging, "It's a lot." My mother
said, "Well, it is, but it's a special day. I want you to have a
special dress, so don't even think about how much it is." So, we happily
went home with what we thought was "the most beautiful dress in the
world". It seemed a little odd to be bringing home such a "dressy" and
Spring-y dress" in the cold of March, and I would later learn that my
mother had chosen to make such a Wintry day our shopping day for a
reason. What I hadn’t known then was that my mother had been feeling
really sick and wanted to make sure that I had my dress, in case she
found herself in the hospital and unable to have enough time to shop for
the dress in time.
The very next week I my sister and I (my brother was a toddler) would
find ourselves standing in the living-room, crying, as our mother was
brought out on a stretcher. One of the ambulance attendants, a man
probably in his fifties, sounded disgusted as he said to us, "What are
you crying for! She isn't dying." Neither my sister nor I replied to the
unkind man, but the answer to his question was that we were crying
because we were scared. We had never seen our mother brought out in an
ambulance, although we knew she was sick and we knew she had coughed up
blood. When you're seven - or twelve, as my sister was - and your mother
is sicker than you've ever seen her, you're just scared.
Continued........
Continued from "Of Truth, Truths, Santa and a Perfectly Imperfect, Doll's-Jacket Part 1"
My mother would spend a week at Massachusetts General Hospital. She was
said to have pneumonia. A week later my father told us that she would be
moving to a different hospital. I was with my father for his first talk
with my mother's new doctor at the new hospital, and when the somewhat
elderly woman told my father it was believed that my mother had
tuberculosis, although, she said, they weren't entirely sure; I was
horrified. At seven, I didn't really know what tuberculosis was, but I
was old enough to have seen posters and ads about it in one place or
another. I knew it wasn't good.
The doctor went on to tell my father how everyone who had been with my
mother would have to be tested, and then she went on to talk about
making arrangements for him to put us in foster care. My father said,
"No foster care." The doctor said, "Well, what are you going to do? You
have to work?" Sitting next to my father across from the doctor, I
looked up at the side of his face and could almost sense him digging his
heels into the floor as he repeated, "No foster care." The doctor
"pursued her line of questioning" (as they say) and seemed to be getting
impatient with my father. As the doctor pursued my father first said,
"I don't know. I'll figure something out," and then "I'll think of
something." As if my father didn't already know all, the doctor reminded
him that he had to work and that my sister and I had to get to school.
From what I'd seen of people dealing with my mother (which was that
ambulance attendant and this doctor), none of these people were very
nice. My father explained to me that this woman was not the doctor who
would be treating my mother. He said that the doctor who would treat my
mother actually seemed like a nice person.
My father did "figure something out" with the help of my mother's sister
who, herself, was separated from her husband and was raising her
daughter - not much older than I, and who had a physical disability
related to walking - herself. My aunt would quit her job, and my father
would pay her to come to our house each day after she got her daughter
off to school. She'd then arrange to have my cousin come home to our
house after school, and both would be at our house until my father got
home from work. Both my father and mother were glad to have this
particular aunt, with whom we were very close anyway, care for us. The
arrangement, however, did mean that my father's already modest paycheck
had quite a dent put into it.
To this day I don't know the extent of any medical bills that resulted
from my mother's illness; but during that time when she was hospitalized
my two-year-old brother, who had been born prematurely, had a few
different episodes of having pneumonia and/or febrile seizures that
resulted in my brother's being hospitalized for a few days as well.
Again, I don't know what medical bills, or parts of bills, may have
resulted. What I do know is that a different aunt helped my father
provide some of my sister's birthday gift that year; and even though my
father never really mentioned money, I was aware of the fact that he was
worried about some bills. He and my mother had worked hard to build up
great credit, so I know that the worry about not being able to pay bills
on time was just another thing on top of the rest of his worries.
Speaking of the rest of my father's worries, those TB tests we'd all had
came out negative for my siblings and me and a couple of other
relatives. My father's came out positive but not "dramatically"
positive. He was told that most people over forty would have a similar
result. Mine, on the other hand, came out positive, and a little more
"dramatically" positive than my father's. That set up a schedule or
regular x-rays for me, as well as a prescription for a medicine aimed at
addressing the present of the "TB germ" and a prescription vitamin
liquid.
My sister and I lived kind of numb that first month or so when my mother
went into the TB hospital. We went to school as usual each school day;
but when it came to go to bed each night, not just for that first month
or so but for the whole time my mother was hospitalized; my sister and I
would start worrying that our mother might die or might never come
home, and that's when we'd cry. We had an amazing and wonderful father
that we loved every bit as much as we loved our mother, but he was not
our mother. He worked, cooked, cleaned, took care of three kids and an
eight-room house, and always tried to make us laugh. He sometimes ran
from one hospital in Boston to another one in a not-so-handy suburb, or
else didn't visit my mother in order to be with my baby brother when he
was in the hospital. Life would have been perfectly normal for us if it
weren't for the fact that our mother wasn't home. In school I was "the
kid whose mother is very sick and in the hospital". That didn't affect
my school work or my playing with friends, but it was there, and I knew
it was there.
In any case, when May 2 came around my mother would not, of course, be
there to see me make my First Communion. I was to be the one who would
lead the procession of girls, for no reason other than the fact that I
was a freakishly small girl, and kids in the procession were lined up by
height. Still, being the first in the procession meant I had a couple
of "responsibilities", and I not only took them seriously but was kind
of proud of having been entrusted with them.
On the morning of May 2 my father put together everything that I would
need, as well as his own suit and whatever my brother would need. My
sister was old enough to take care of herself and her own stuff, and I
suppose, she may have helped some with my brother. When it came to
combing out my hair, which had been set (I think, by my father) on
little rubber curlers the night before, my father suggested that my
sister might be a better one to be able to style my hair for The Big
Day.
My parents had always said they didn't want to expect older kids to take
care of younger ones; so while my sister had always been nice to me,
she'd never been involved with any "taking-care-of" roles. One thing
that I recall most about that busy morning was that as my sister began
to comb out my hair I looked up and saw her eyes filled with tears. As
she carefully trying to do a good job with this responsibility of fixing
my hair for my special day, I felt the tears skimming my face and
really wished she wouldn't cry because I was OKAY - lonely and sad
because my mother couldn't see me in that beautiful dress, but OKAY (or
least OKAY enough).
Continued (and Conclusion)
Continued from "Of Truth, Truths, Santa and A Perfectly Imperfect Doll-Jacket " Part 3
Once the weather was warm enough we were able to see my mother once a
week, and that would be every Sunday. Visitors were not allowed inside
the hospital, so my father would pack up the three of us to go stand on
the lawn outside my mother's first-floor window, where she sat and
talked to us from far too far away. Sometimes her roommate's husband and
two kids would be out there, talking to their mother too. I was glad to
know my mother had a friend there. She had other friends there who were
sicker than either she or her roommate
It was in Autumn when my mother was first allowed a “pass” from the
hospital and was able to come home for a few hours on a couple, or few,
weekends. Each time she would have to return to the hospital at the end
of an afternoon, it was awful all over again. Later, as there was talk
about her being able to come home, she was allowed weekend passes that
meant my father would pick her up Saturday mornings and bring her back
to the hospital early Sunday evenings. That went on for a few weekends
until she would eventually be able to be discharged from inpatient care
in November. There would be years of follow-up x-rays and check-ups at
gradually decreasing intervals, but she was home and seemed healthy even
if I never again quite felt as if there was much of a guarantee that
she’d remain healthy.
As an adult, I have a far better idea of the kind of financial struggles
my parents deal with in those months following my hospitalization, but
there was always plenty to eat and heat and lights in house that had to
wait for new wallpaper and new front stairs. At that time, though, all
that mattered was that my mother was home – completely home – for
Christmas, and my sister and I hadn’t had our nightly cry (if I recall
correctly) since we first heard that our mother would be coming home..
From what my mother would later say, I now know that what was under the
tree that Christmas wasn’t as much as what “Santa” had always left, and
would later leave again. I didn’t notice, but then I was so completely
and utterly happy to find that “Baby Dear” doll I didn’t care much about
anything else. In those days what Santa left was different from what he
leaves these days anyway. For example, in those days (at least for a
lot of us from working-class families) the foot of Christmas stockings
was pretty much filled with an apple, a tangerine, and a bunch of
walnuts. There wasn’t a lot of room left for a whole of stocking
stuffers, especially once some chocolate and a candy cane were added.
There, though, next to “Baby Dear”, was a somewhat different looking
piece of doll clothing. It was the baby-pink jacket with darker pink
ribbon piping, some tiny white buttons. There was hand-stitching that
looked suspiciously similar to the kind of hand-stitching I'd known my
mother to do. I may have believed in Santa, but I'd never been one to
believe, or be told, that elves made the gifts he left. I'd been told
that Santa had helpers who would help supply him with the stuff he left.
Actually, now that I think of it, I'd pretty much been told that the
role of elves was to hide places and make sure kids were being good
right before Christmas.
So, as I noticed the white hand-stitching on "Baby Dear's" jacket I knew
that, if nothing else, my mother hadn't had much of a chance before
Christmas to "get out and talk to Santa's helpers", and I wondered, too,
how she'd found the time to make that jacket without my seeing her
doing it. As she and my father stood by, watching for our reaction to
what had been left under the tree; I wanted very much to cry - not
because I didn't like the little pink jacket, but because my mother, who
had been through so much for so long and was finally home after what
seemed like an eternity of living afraid of losing her; had chosen to
let "Santa" take the credit for the jacket, rather than proudly just
saying to me, "Here. I made this little jacket for your new doll."
In my relatively few seven, short, years of life I'd seen more than my
share of store-bought/machine-stiched doll clothes, as well as real-girl
clothes; so I saw in the imperfection of that hand-stitching, not only
the truth, but a few different truths. I didn't allow myself to cry, no
matter how much I felt moved to the brink of some serious tears because
standing in that living room, right where she belonged and from which
she'd once be carried away for such a very long time in the life of a
child; was my mother, hoping to see my happy reaction to what Santa had
left. So, instead of crying I put the little pink jacket on "Baby Dear',
who had been left by Santa only in a wrap, newborn, under-shirt and
diaper - happy and content to think that my "baby" was dressed in a
pretty outfit (with those ever-important pretty ribbons and tiny white
buttons), nice and warm, and safe with a "mother" who loved her.
Yes, I had a pretty good idea about one truth that day; and I came to be
certain about that handful of other truths. I spoke none of them that
day, or ever in the case of some of those truths. I would instead just
carry them with me long after I stopped carrying "Baby Dear" around with
me, and moved her from a doll-crib in my bedroom to the place where all
childhood memories inevitably remain.
