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The Heart of Christmas

“Mom, do you remember our Christmas tree without a heart?
I’ll always remember it, “ said Lisa, my 13-year-old-daughter as we were preparing our traditional Christmas date nut bread.

How could I forget?  My sister’s death continues to haunt me. Barb called Thanksgiving morning.  As I listened to her weak, breathless voice, I was terrified I’d never have a chance to see her again. We had known since the last week of October that the melanoma was racing through her system, but we were sure the treatments were working.

My mother-in-law, who was in my kitchen fussing with our Thanksgiving turkey had told me Barb was weakening, but her warning didn’t register until I heard Barb’s rasping and wheezing as she tearfully tried to asked me to do her a favor.

“Hang on, Kid,” I said.

“I’m trying.  Sylvie, please, please take care of my baby.  Who will be Stevie’s mama?  Please promise me you’ll watch out for her.  I’m so afraid to leave my baby.”

Weeping with her, I said, “Barbie, I’ll be there next week.  I promise. I’ll be there.”

After dinner, my parents, who spent Thanksgiving with Barb and her family, called to say Barb had been taken to the hospital.  Her pain was too intense.  She needed round the clock hospital care.  We planned to leave Kansas City the next morning, but a severe ice storm delayed our journey.  Two days later I left my husband and two children to travel with my in-laws for an indefinite stay at Barb’s home.

That stay was much too short.  When we arrived at the hospital in western Nebraska, Barb was nearly comatose.  Her beautiful body was ravaged by the disease; she was so thin and puffy, so pale and pain-ridden.  I could sit beside her, hold her hand, and tell her I loved her, but I couldn’t help her.
I spent most of my days cleaning her house, answering her phone and rocking Stevie, who was six.

Just after midnight on the day after Barb and Bob’s tenth wedding anniversary, Bob called home.  The struggle was over.  I called my husband, my mother and my sister.  Tearfully we made plans for everyone to come together.

Once my children arrived, Stevie didn’t need so much rocking with Aunt Sylvie; she and Lisa found other ways to comfort one another.   Strains of “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To” still remind us of the girls finding a way to cope.  The two girls would dance to the music and then come cuddle up with me in the big rocker.  We told stories about happier times.
We talked about Christmas plans.

Before we left to come back to Kansas City, Stevie wanted to decorate her house for Christmas.  Somehow no tears were shed as the house of sorrow was festooned for the holidays.

As soon as we arrived home, my children insisted we decorate our house.  We had a great big artificial tree that Grandma brought us at Thanksgiving and the kids wanted to see how big a seven-foot tree really was.   Before we unloaded the trunk of the car, we dragged out the two tree boxes and prepared to set up the tree.

Methodically, we sorted the branches in the first box and assembled the  tree. The living room floor was covered with plastic pine, but the first box only had enough branches to fill three bottom rows. The second box revealed a three-foot miniature pine tree top.... but no branches for the middle rows.  The rest of the tree was in a third box.  We didn’t have a third box. We had no middle branches.  We had a pathetic, barren tree trunk where the rest of the tree should be.

“Oh no!” cried Lisa. “Our tree doesn’t have a heart.”  
All of us began to laugh and cry. The tree reflected our feelings perfectly.

“Oh, yes, Lisa,” I said. “I remember. Why won’t you forget it?

“Because, Momma, that’s when you told me that Aunt Barbie was with Jesus, and we’d always have both of them in our hearts.