View From a Prairie Home

by Hege Hernfindahl, Columnist

I am not quite sure when you will read this article. Christmas Eve, maybe or maybe the day after Christmas. I don’t know how tired you are of reading stories about Christmas. The celebrations. The traditions. The lonely Christmas. The jolly Christmas. I wrote a story last week of my childhood Christmas, which might be interesting but hardly very unusual.

I remember the time the Star Tribune asked its readers to submit their most memorable Christmas stories to be published in a special Christmas edition on Christmas Eve. It was a long time ago, before I started writing articles on a regular basis. But I felt compelled to write then. About a Christmas long ago. And about how happy I had been. The story, in a shortened version, was actually published. I don’t know if it was actually very good, but maybe it was published because it was different. So, even though the actual story as I wrote it has not been saved, I thought I would try to write it again.

The year was 1975. We had moved to the United States that year. In June. We moved with our 8-month-old son, Reuben. The first grandchild for both sets of parents. Moving here was actually my idea. We had lived in Oslo for a while. In a fourplex with two bedrooms and a rather large living room. We got the apartment through a friend of my father, who owned a few houses in Oslo. We had much better housing than most of our friends. But we both wanted to move. The apartment was in Oslo and we wanted our baby to grow up in nature. Grant’s parents owned two farm houses and offered us one of them if we were to move. I thought we should and of course, Grant agreed.

Living here was comforting and good with lots of nature and beauty, but I hadn’t realized how isolated it was living on a farm. Grant’s family was wonderful to us, but I was so homesick, especially for my parents but also my home in Norway. A phone call was expensive and although the letters were frequently sent and received, it wasn’t the same. A trip to Oslo was out of out reach as beginning farmers, but my father sent us money to come home for Christmas.

Flying with a baby was hard, especially a baby that had learned to walk and couldn’t understand why he had to be contained at various times during our  long trip with one layover in New York and one in Copenhagen. Of course, my parents were at the airport, excited to see us and especially Reuben. In those days, the main airport in Oslo was not that far from my parents’ house, so the trip from the airport was quick. As soon as we had eaten, all three of us went to bed, exhausted from the long trip.

I woke up to sounds of laughter and I wondered where I was. Grant was sleeping still, but the crib was empty. Realizing where I was, I ascended the stairs to my parents’ living room. And I saw them; next to the three stairs down from the living room to the landing was a little groove. My father helped Reuben set up his toy cars on the groove next to the stairs and the cars went down and crashed on the landing below. Reuben laughed out loud and my parents joined him. Then, Reuben would clap and turn in circles and my parents would do the same. And they all laughed.

I stood there silently watching. Three of the people I loved the most. Spending innocent time together and laughing. I don’t remember crying. But I do remember how happy I was. euphoric even. So happy, I could easily have cried.

The future hadn’t happened yet. One month later, my father would be diagnosed with brain cancer. Next Christmas there would be no laughter or even trips to Norway. But as time went on, the picture of the three of them laughing would stay with me forever, so strong I could even remember the color of the little toy cars.