I went back to bed, and when I woke up three hours later, I found him sitting in the same position on the couch, staring at my parents with laser eyes as they puttered back and forth between the kitchen and the family room to make their coffee and put the traditional breakfast casserole in the oven. I wasn't surprised. Despite the fact that we had two younger sisters, Zach was always the first to wake up Christmas morning. Way past the point when most kids his age opted for an extra couple hours of sleep over opening presents at the crack of dawn, he was the one to run into my bedroom and shout, "Wake up! It's Christmas!" in my ear.
It wasn't abut the presents for him. Not really. He was the least materialistic person I've ever met, even as a kid. With the one noted exception of his second Christmas, when he asked for a blue car and had a total meltdown when Santa brought him a red one, I don't remember him having a super emotional reaction to any particular gift. What he liked was the ritual of it, the spectacle, the fact that no matter what, every year ended with a magic we all worked together to create. He was always broke, but he never let that stand in the way of spreading Christmas cheer. In high school, he and his band created an album of original Christmas songs, which is one of my most cherished possessions. When I had children and he became an uncle, he may not have been able to afford gifts for the whole family, but he always made sure the kids had something great to open. On his last Christmas, a week after his twenty-third birthday, he drove three hours to surprise his girlfriend at her parents' house on Christmas Eve, and then back to our parents' house on Christmas day to open presents and play with my kids. He wanted to experience everyone's magic, to make everyone's Christmas better and brighter, and he never failed.
My brother only had twenty-three Christmases. He died in a hiking accident in September, 2011. And three short months later, a week after he would have (should have) celebrated his 24th birthday, it was Christmastime again.
The first December without my brother, I cried every single day. Every song reminded me of him. Every tree. Every bright colored light. Every holiday movie or Hallmark commercial or Christmas pageant or nativity scene made made me feel like the the bottom of my heart had dropped out. I tortured myself by listening to his homemade Christmas album on my drives to and from work, trying to cry myself out of tears before I got home to my kids. I banned the songs "Frosty the Snowman," "All I Want for Christmas is you," and "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" from my house as long as my husband and children were home, but would listen to them on repeat and cry when I was by myself. I didn't want commemorate his birthday or celebrate Christmas. But I wasn't the only person in my family. I had a two-year-old and a five-year-old who my brother had loved to the moon and back. And Zach wouldn't have wanted them to miss out.
So we decorated the tree. We went to the Christmas festivals. We drove around the city looking at lights. We went to the Christmas parade. We threw an oyster roast on Zach's birthday and filled the house with his music. I decorated my cubicle with Christmas lights and wore antlers on my head to make my kids laugh. We took road trips to celebrate the holidays with friends, and I recorded a video of my children struggling through the Spanish of "Feliz Navidad" and posted it on Facebook with the message, "Merry Christmas from our family to yours." And on Christmas Eve, exactly a year after I had snapped at Zach for talking during the sermon and singing in a silly voice, I went to church, sang the songs, and cried for the thousandth time in three months. Only this time, there was a tiny spark of happiness in the tears, because for the first time since he died, I felt like I was with my brother.
Look, I'm not a very religious person. My husband and I are Unitarian Universalists, and as far as I know, my brother was agnostic. And I know that Christmas has become as much a symbol of our consumerist culture as it is a celebration of the birth of Jesus. I also know that it would be very easy for me to check out during the whole month of December, to make a nest of blankets and stay in bed listening to sad music and reading novels with tragic endings. But every year, the day after Thanksgiving, I take a long look in the mirror and tell myself to buck up. Because I don't know how many Christmases I'll have with my family, and I don't want to waste them.
So this year, we're driving up to the mountains and my husband is indulging me by cutting down the tree of our choosing. We're going to the Christmas parade. We're taking the kids to see The Nutcracker. I'm buying them a ton of presents I know they don't need and decorating the outside of our house with all the bright lights money can buy.We're going to go Christmas caroling with our neighbors and visit a nursing home to bring Christmas cheer to the residents. Just like every year since 2011, I am going to mourn another year of life that my brother has had to miss. I'll cry when we put the ornaments on the tree. I'll feel a deep ache as my children open their presents. I'll cry as I drive through a dark night lit up with the twinkling magic of Christmas. But this year when "Frosty the Snowman" comes on, I'll sing along through the tears, and I'll be singing for my brother.
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| Zach and me, probably Christmas 1995 |
