I spent Christmas Day alone.
I want to tell you about it, because I think people imagine being alone on Christmas is one big sad moment. It isn’t. It’s a hundred small ones.
I woke up at nine after finally falling asleep around six. I made coffee. I turned on the radio, and it was Bing Crosby, and I turned it off again.
I watched a little television. A movie about a dog who saves Christmas.
I opened a present Rebecca had mailed me. A beautiful blue cashmere scarf and a card that said, “For the Oracle. Love you, Mom.”
I called her. We talked for an hour. I didn’t tell her about the porch.
I don’t know why I didn’t. I think I was ashamed. As if it was somehow my fault.
At two o’clock, I thought about taking the lasagna out of the freezer.
I didn’t.
I made a grilled cheese sandwich instead and ate it standing at the counter.
At four o’clock, Todd texted me.
“Merry Christmas Mom. Hope you had a good day.”
That was all.
Hope you had a good day.
I looked at that message for a long time. Then I texted back.
“Merry Christmas, honey.”
Then I put my phone in the drawer, and I didn’t take it out again until the next morning.
The week between Christmas and New Year’s, I spent mostly at my kitchen table with my laptop open, watching Meridian.
On December 28th, when the acquisition was announced, I didn’t scream. I didn’t jump up and down. I didn’t call anybody.
I just sat there and looked at the screen. And then I went to the window and looked out at Marjorie’s blinking Christmas lights for a while.
Then I called Rebecca.
“It happened,” I said.
There was a pause on the line. Then a shriek so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear.
“MOM! Oh my God! Mom!”
“I know.”
“How much?”
I told her.
There was a much longer pause.
“Mom,” she said, in a completely different voice. A quiet one. “You did that. By yourself. At your kitchen table.”
“I did.”
“Dad would be so proud of you.”
Her father, my husband Frank, died nine years ago. A heart attack in the garden, pulling weeds. He was the only other person who ever really understood what I did for a living.
That was when I finally cried. Not about the porch. About Frank.
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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