During my twenties, I signed cards and saluted acquaintances with the slogan, “Happy Holidays!” Saying “Merry Christmas” in the nineties in New York City felt retrograde, even though I was a Catholic. It lacked the carbonation of “Merry Christmas,” but “Happy Holidays” accommodated everyone: my Jewish friends, who were many, my Muslim students, my agnostic neighbors (the former-Catholic-future-Catholics), and my one atheist friend, who was too busy reading to take notice.
It was when our mutual friend Katrina Kenison introduced me to Amy VanEchaute’s blog, My Path With Stars Bestrewn, that the seeds of a friendship were planted. In a later entry, “While My Pretty One Sleeps,” Amy wrote a gorgeous tribute to her beloved Momma, who seemed to me the stuff of fairy tales. At once magical and ephemeral, Amy’s Momma reminded me of my sweet Nana—not mirror images, mind you, but similar in all the places where light exists and love makes itself manifest in the world.
Though we are separated by distance—1,900 miles, more or less—my subsequent conversations with Amy brought us closer. Over time, I came to realize just how much we have in common. Our personalities are uniquely our own, but we approach the world with a shared sense of wide-eyed wonderment, are attuned to music about Mother Earth and her creations, and words that whisper to us the wisdom of Transcendentalists, matriarchs, and the Eternal All-knowing.
A few weeks ago, when Amy posted a picture of the Victorian-style wreath she’d created as a Christmastime homage to her mother, I wished aloud for a memorial spot where I could visit Nana. Amy expressed similar regrets about her own grandmother. As fate would have it, “Maymer” is buried in a cemetery less than nine (count ’em, 9!) miles from my house.
Get this: I’d never made a wreath for a loved one before, much less a total stranger! So what? My inner voice asked. I answered the challenge by grabbing my car keys and heading to Michaels. Not for me, something purely decorative…I’d pull together thematic elements! The circular shape would speak of unity—the joining of hands across the miles, a warm embrace in absentia. And the sturdy evergreens would represent our grandmothers’ character: strong women who endured hard times without complaint, who embroidered the fanciful into the everyday, and who sowed seeds of grace in every word and deed.
Behold! My first-ever homemade bow! See the tiny angel? She represents Maymer and Nana, spiritual giants of short stature. In the curve adjacent to the gilt-edged bow, I placed creamy white roses, as fair as our grandmothers’ porcelain complexions.
Here and there, I scattered various gifts of earth and sky, to help illustrate the underlying meaning of this circle: Hope, that thing with feathers; pinecones that represent growth and renewal; a sprig of cedar that symbolizes strength and healing; holly that speaks of loving sacrifice; and twining ivy, to depict the precious memories that cling to the very fabric of our being.
I then clipped two candles on the upper right corner, humming as I placed them among the greenery: These little lights of ours, I’m gonna let ‘em shine… Sprigs of mistletoe are scattered at the base of the candles, for who deserves bunches of kisses more than a beloved grandmother?
A chubby bird hovers mid-air, a shimmery gold confection that catches the sunlight with its feathers. Into its bosom, I tucked a pale pink rose from my backyard garden—a secret treasure of the sort that I suspect Nana and Maymer loved best. Over time the petals will fade and crumble, but as with our most cherished memories, their essence will remain.
Here’s how my finished wreath looked, lovingly placed as it was near the cedar tree where Maymer rests.
I discovered nearby yet another wreath, created with bougainvillea flowers by Mother Nature herself! It’s a very unusual arrangement, which makes me wonder if I was meant to stumble upon it in my walk across the grounds. And just beyond the reach of my camera, a songbird flew from tree to tree, chirping when it landed but never lighting long enough for me to get a clear glimpse of it. Felt more than seen, it was identifiable only through the sweetness of its song. “Like the soul,” Amy suggests to me later.
This wreath is truly a gift of the heart and of this season. It honors the circle of life, a miracle with no beginning or end, and brings tidings of comfort and joy to both the giver and recipient. In the same way that the Winter Solstice turns back the dark by lengthening the days, this gift has swaddled us in warmth and light—new friends who feel as if we’ve known each other forever, pulled by our grandmothers into a wordless embrace that is nothing less than divine.
About Melodye Shore: I am an established writer and researcher whose work appears in a wide variety of published articles, newsletters, and educational materials. My personal essay, “Luz” is included in the Young Adult anthology, DEAR BULLY: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories (HarperTeen, 2011), and I’m a co-contributor to THE GIRL GUIDE: Finding Your Place in a Mixed-up World (Sourcebooks, Inc., 2013). An experienced public speaker, I’ve been quoted on a variety of topics in Time Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated, USA Today, and other publications.
My current book project, CAN I GET A WITNESS? Memoir of a Tent Evangelist’s Daughter, chronicles an itinerant childhood during which my family crisscrossed the country in a cramped sedan, setting up revival meetings wherever we landed.
While I still enjoy traveling, I feel most at home in Southern California, where I live with my husband. In addition to writing, my interests include art journaling, photography, gardening, and plotting new adventures. Connect with me here.
Featured image courtesy of Robert S. Donovan.
My father never told us that he loved us. Instead, Dad fixed the things that we loved. Decapitated dolls. Wobbly kitchen chairs. Pinching shoes. Give my Dad one hour in his backyard shed, a few whirrs and clanks from his messy toolbox, and … Presto! Whatever had been fractured was (almost) good as new again.
Dad worked 60-plus hours per week as a lorry driver for Ireland’s state-run freight company. In the busy season, the Guinness Brewery sub-contracted with his company to make extra beer deliveries. In Ireland, believe me when I tell you that there is no busier Guinness season than December and New Year’s.
So by Christmas Eve afternoon, Dad was still working, and our tree always stood, trimmed but unlit, in the window of our front parlor. It never occurred to my mother or any of us five kids that anyone but Dad should or could engage in the Grand Light Showdown. Only Dad could get those miniature lights working and strung.
Our house sat directly across the street from the village church, so we were under deadline and surveillance. In country villages like ours, tongues really wagged—especially during sold-out Yuletide ceremonies. So before our fellow parishioners arrived for midnight service, whatever it took, he had to get that tree lit.
Now, over four decades later, I can still see him standing there in his lorry-driver’s uniform, testing, twiddling, and then, when he found that one, recalcitrant bulb, he would dead-head and fix it until … We had lights.
When I was eight years old I desperately wanted to be a writer.
I didn’t know I could be one without a typewriter (yes, I am old enough to have used a typewriter!) and I knew my parents couldn’t afford to buy me one, so I fiercely prayed to Santa Claus on a nightly basis, begging him to bring me one for Christmas.
I excitedly rolled that page into my typewriter and began tapping away on the keys. I watched as words appeared, then sentences. I couldn’t believe that what had been just a thought in my head was appearing on this blank canvas, right before my eyes! The reality of this scared me. “What if I make a mistake? I can’t just erase it, it’s ink!” I thought. The paper felt so special to me, I didn’t want to waste even one piece of it!
What a powerful gift we come equipped with and no Santa required (sorry Santa!).