Page 93 of The Christmas Keepsake
The Memory Tree Ornament
The Memory Tree Ornament is actually just a tiny blue bear like you might win in one of those claw machines. With two beady black eyes and a threaded nose and mouth.
Here’s the story.
I worried that the worst thing that could happen by me casting Hollis alongside Mallory was that she’d fall head over heels for him. I’ve been accused of always worrying about the worst-case scenario. There was a scenario I hadn’t considered though.
I hadn’t accounted for the possibility that Hollis would be a no-show on opening night. There was an understudy, of course. There should always be a good understudy for every role, but the boy I assigned didn’t know the lines. He wasn’t ready, and his lack of preparation would erase all the hard work that Mallory had put into this role that she was so excited about.
I wish Hollis being a no-show was even the worst part, but there’s more. While he didn’t show up for the stage, he did come to the theater. Instead of entering stage left, he made his grand entrance from the back of the theater, drunk as a skunk and ranting like a rebellious teen boy who only knew rejection and pain. I wanted to feel sorry for him, but the fact that he was hurting my granddaughter made me angry. So angry.
As Mallory delivered her lines, a loud “booooooo” rang out. Not just once, but again and again. Each boo was louder than the last until the audience started laughing and Mallory fled the stage in tears. Afterward, law enforcement hauled him off to juvenile detention. He’dcaused some more commotion prior to coming to the theater that night, but, as mad as I was at Hollis, I also felt responsible. I knew he wasn’t ready. I knew he was just as fragile, if not more so, than Mallory.
Some people can’t accept kindness. Not when all they’ve ever known is the opposite.
Mallory refused a role the next year. Then she turned away from theater altogether, deciding that she wanted to study nursing instead. Mallory leaned into the straight and narrow. Nursing was practical, respectable, and safe. Mallory became more serious than ever. She rarely laughed, except with her friend Savannah, who came every summer and brought out the light in her.
Eventually, Mickey and I were empty nesters. Mallory went away to college, pursuing a degree that seemed fitting for the child who’d taken care of her younger sister all through growing up. Maddie had never enjoyed theater life. I wasn’t a bit surprised when she reached eighteen and turned down a college scholarship to backpack along the Appalachian Trail. It did surprise me when she fearlessly climbed a few mountains. Strong and brave.
“They’re grown now. All of them. What if I didn’t do a good enough job?” I asked Mickey one night.
“Nan, they’re fine. Mallory is a nurse. Maddie is an adventurer. She’s exploring the great, big world. Even our Daisy is a success.”
We’d been following Daisy’s career. She got sober on her own. And every Christmas, she sent a card. You know, the kind that encapsulates the year in a letter, telling us about all her accomplishments. She was the lead actress in an off-Broadway play that ran for years. She had small roles on TV and even one on the bigscreen! Imagine that. My daughter. Your mother. We were proud. We even watched a few TV performances together.
“Our girls are all living their lives,” Mickey said. “It’s time for us to do the same.” He leveled his gaze with mine. “Now we get to focus on us.”
He was right. I knew it. I’d played the role of mother too long, neglecting the role of wife. He’d been so patient, as always.
For a while, maybe a decade, it was good. Then I noticed that I couldn’t remember the lines of the play I’d been performing for so many years. My mother had dementia toward the end of her life. In the back of my mind, I wondered if I was following in her footsteps.
When our wedding anniversary came, Mickey gave me a little gift in honor of Michael, as had been his tradition since the beginning. It was a little blue stuffed bear, no bigger than my palm.
“Michael,” I whispered. “Our baby.” My brain must have shifted to a place I only went to in my imagination. “Oh, Ralph. Our baby boy.”
When I looked up from the bear, expecting to see Ralph, however, I saw Mickey. In his expression, I saw the confusion. The horrible realization.
A panic crashed over me. It was two parts. The first being that I’d somehow disappeared into a false reality. The second being that I had revealed my big secret. The baby wasn’t from a one-night stand in New York. The baby had been Ralph’s. Part of me wanted to immediately play it off, but Mickey deserved better than a lie.
“Thank you for remembering him,” I said instead, clutching that little blue bear and feeling like I washolding on to all my memories now, wondering if they’d fall out from under me. I later carried that bear to my keepsake box, my eyes scanning over all the tiny treasures that held my most precious memories. I held each one, ensuring that I knew its significance. It was Christmas and I had a small tree set up, not even decorated. That’s when I started putting the items on the tree, choosing them by order, ensuring my time line was accurate.
That was the first time I put up my Memory Tree.
Mickey never wavered in how he treated me, and some part of me believes he knew all along and loved me anyway. He loved me for all my beauty, but for my flaws too. Truth be told, the flaws are what makes life, and love, more beautiful.
I put the Memory Tree up again the next year. And that time I wrote the stories down. For some reason, I wrote the stories as if I was telling them to you, my sweet granddaughters. As I wrote it all down, I was telling you the stories because in playwriting and theater, POV can change the entire story. The storyteller is the one who determines how history is ultimately remembered.
I realize that you girls may remember me as the stern grandmother who made you eat your vegetables, do your chores, and memorize your lines (Mallory). But you never met the me who made monumental mistakes. I wanted you to meet that girl. That woman. I wanted you to have the answers when your loved ones asked you one day.
So here we are. All my memories, my life, comes down to a box full of mysterious keepsakes that may look like someone’s trash. They were my treasure though.
Take out those most special memories every so often,like ornaments on a tree. Admire them. Reflect on what they meant to you. Then put them away just like your box of ornaments, because the future lies ahead, like the New Year after Christmas.
Oh, and make sure you choose love. Yes, love is a choice. It’s more than a feeling, it’s an action. A messy, painful, beautiful action that is worth it all in the end… And always use a live tree.
With my greatest love and sweetest memories,
Nan
