David Heiller
Dear Grandma:
Another year has
gone by already. It seems like I just wrote to you, yet it was last Christmas.
Is time flying because so much has changed?
I know you are
keeping an eye on us, but I still want to say a few things.
In a way it doesn’t
seem like Christmas. No trip to the woods to cut down the tree. Even the woods
have changed. Our balsams and spruce from up north have been replaced by good
old oak and hickory.
 |
| Christmas cheer and Christmas hugs. |
No house, no halls
that Cindy can deck with her Christmas flair and fervor. She made that old farm
house sparkle. I agree with Ben Logan—Santa Claus is a woman, at least in our
house.
No Noah. He has to
work. This will be our first Christmas without him. It’s hard on us, and probably
on him, although he won’t admit that. I remember my first Christmas away from
home, in Morocco in 1977, I walked down the road under a full moon in shorts
and a T-shirt, surrounded by sand. In a way I felt closer to the first
Christmas 2000 years ago. It hadn’t happened that many miles to the east of
where I was walking, and maybe on a night like that.
But I was homesick!
No familiar faces, no big family get-togethers, no chocolate drop cookies by
you, or stories of Christmas in Nebraska, eating a big naval orange.
So the experience
was a good one—new insights on Christmas and on me. That’s what growing up is
all about. It will probably be the same for Noah.
I guess those new
insights are still happening. We’re not in our own home yet, not getting together
with our old friends. A new chapter is starting. We are keeping that in mind.
And we are enjoying our time living above your favorite daughter—and my
favorite mom.
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| David loved doing things for older folks. Grandma Schnick and Grandma Heiller were his inspiration. He and Malika preformed together many times with this in mind. |
Christmas songs are
helping me the most this year. The button box is sitting on the dresser, and it
gets played almost every day, mostly old favorites like Jolly Old St. Nicholas,
but a new one too that I’ve almost got down, Star of the East. It’s new for me
at least, but not to everybody, including Bertha Heiller, who wants to hear it.
Malika and I plan to accommodate her wishes.
Jill Hahn at the Argus
asked Susie Frank and me the other day what our favorite Christmas songs were.
What a hard question! Impossible, really. But it got me to thinking. Susie said
Silent Night, and Jill came in with
the same. I had to answer Away in the
Manger. But there really isn’t one answer to that question.
It made me think
about when I was stranded in the mountains back in November of 1973. As I lay
in my little tent, surrounded by deep snow, all the Christmas songs of my youth
came back. Every time I thought I had sung them all, a new one would pop into
my head. They gave me joy and strength. I know they helped me survive.
I don’t have to
worry about that anymore, at least not in the physical sense. But they still
give my life meaning. Some things will always be with a person.
Like you, Grandma.
It’s been 14 years since you left us, but you are still here, and, like a good
Christmas carol, still in our hearts.
Merry Christmas.
David
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