View From The Cab

By David Tollefson, Columnist

Laura Cole is a staff writer for The Land Magazine. She writes in the Dec. 9 edition of the magazine, under the above title.

It is a rather long column, but I will quote parts of it that I thought relevant to the upcoming holiday that we all love to look forward to. Here goes:

As a kid, my ideas of Christmas were a little like the inside of a snow globe scene. Everything just so and even if I shook that little orb, the objects inside stayed as they should. The little girl continued to smile The snowman didn’t melt. The puppy would always have his bone with a bright red bow tied around it. And in my mind, my family’s holiday traditions were thousands of years old. Concrete, cemented in place.

There was an unspoken rule that all five of us kids got along on holidays. Fighting would not exist. We toasted each other with real smiles on our faces. We ate our meals with the good dishes and said please pass the gravy. We didn’t try to leave the table before the ending prayer was said. For the day, we were perfect children.

The first time I felt an infringement on Christmas magic was when I was about 10 years old or so. Even in a conservative German Lutheran church there was a lot of energy inside the brick and stained glass. After the service and waiting to hear “It’s time to go,” I was racing down the stairs from balcony to basement with a friend. As we rounded the end of a banister, we slowed down as a young woman was helping a much older man down the stairs. I remember he was taller than I thought an old man could be, and he wore a medical mask (during a time when that was definitely more rare). As he took the last step to leave the church, his foot caught the rug and he tripped, falling to his knees. With one hand on the floor, he struggled to stand, and was unable.

I wondered if the man was ill or even dying, and what would the rest of his Christmas be like. I didn’t think it could be good. I had witnessed the real truth that strong men eventually become weak. Young become old. The realization that Christmas does not live in a snow globe.

This moment turned out to be a beginning lesson in accepting that life can be one thing and also another. Good, but with sadness. Joyful among misfortune.

For about six years in my twenties, I worked with individuals with developmental disabilities. Holiday shifts were sometimes hard to fill and one year I found myself with the Christmas evening shift.

At the time, I had a toddler at home, and I was a little heartbroken to be missing out on witnessing the magic of Christmas Eve through her eyes. 

Driving to my 2-10 pm shift, I felt weighted down. My daughter would be fast asleep by the time I would be home, and I would never have that one specific Christmas Eve with her. And if I’m being honest, I was also worried that my husband was going to knock out my family tradition of chili before the Christmas eve service with his family’s tradition of lasagna. Traditions are serious.

As I pulled into the group home’s driveway, I remembered the age-old reminder within that line of work: Leave your personal at their doorstep.

I was expecting it to be a good shift, that there would be some smiles and laughs. I would be taking one of the more elderly ladies to a Christmas Eve service, and she was looking forward to it. She had the personality any public speaker would love to have in attendance. When the pastor told a joke and only got a couple of smiles from everyone else, she was the ultimate congregant and responded with a long laugh. Her laughter was heartwarming and encouraging, and you couldn’t help but join in. She knew every Christmas song, and words really can’t describe how if felt to be at that candlelit service, sitting next to this lovely lady with her hands clasped, eyes closed, and singing “Silent Night.” The words she didn’t know, she hummed along to, and once she was familiar again, she picked right back up.

There’s a reserved tranquility that accompanies leaving an evening church service. As I carefully guided the wheelchair through the snowy sidewalk, I felt inspired and renewed.

Until I set off the alarm on the van.

It was not a beep that lasted a second or two. It was a horrendous non-stop blaring. If the cattle lowing couldn’t make baby Jesus cry, this would have done the trick (not that Mary was asking). In my panic to make it all stop, I began pushing every button on the remote as many times as I could. The woman I was with initially groaned at the total disruption, and I could not stop apologizing to her as I continued to fumble. At some point, she began laughing and eventually I was able to join her amidst the chaos.

I 100 percent ruined the mood of that peaceful Christmas Eve. But maybe there was a 10-year-old sitting in a nearby pew that night who remembers something more. Along with the honest singing of that woman, did she also hear the persistent and, at times, pained coughing and sadly realize life is still life on Christmas? But maybe she also witnessed the commotion in the parking lot and had a laugh over that frantic twenty-something trying her best. Did the disruption of the van alarm truly take away the holiday spirit? Or maybe (I can only hope) it brought an understanding that life is struggle, and it’s joy.

So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

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When the writer talked about family traditions at Christmas, I tried to think about what we had to eat at our house when our three kids were growing up. My oldest daughter reminded me that our tradition for years was manicotti. And once in a while one of us (me) would have some lutefisk………uffda

Great memories! Make this a great Christmas wherever you are!

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Please contact David Tollefson with thoughts or comments on this or future columns at: adtollef@hcinet.net