Christmas Memories Remembered 1954 & 1984

                            

A Christmas with The Anderson Family

I will begin with my beginnings as a child of 5 [1954] waiting with anticipation for that morning of awe and wonder......... Christmas. The night before on the eve of Christmas we would travel to my father's family across town, Grandmother's home along with auntie Adele and youngest cousin Ronveig. The only cousin named after a relative in Trondheim Norway. Always reminding all of us of the strong heritage we came from. It included all the food and goodies my Grandma Lena would prepare days before. I was the first grand-daughter born and very interested in the food. To this day I am the only family member to know her recipes and to continue to prepare as an adult.... the Yulekaka bread and much more.. My aunt a retired Opera performer, that included Madame Butterfly in Oslo, would rehearse carols with all her nieces lined up in party dresses to sing accompanied by piano. A spark, I am sure of inspiration for my third sister who became a singer performer and choir director..

My memories also include the side of the holiday that would be at times terrifying. Scandinavian culture includes the drinking of alcohol. I would watch each year in anxious anticipation the stupor and slurring of words as my father would fall into the drunkenness. I was so afraid of the arguing that would follow with my mother, grandmother, and uncles. And most alarming to me was who would drive us home. All I wanted was to be safe. In the following Christmas eves, I would hang out with Grandma in the kitchen throughout the night and learn her recipes. A joyful time for me. 

Lena, she knew how hard it was for the children to wait for the full smorgasbord to be displayed. Yulekaka cardamon bread, gravlax salmon, red pickled cabbage, fiskeball soup, and the notorious gefillte cod fisk. A tray was made for children only. I would eventually have this as my contribution to the table. Openface sandwiches on french bread smothered in butter, a thin slice of swiss cheese, and a long thin dill pickle on top. I would put this platter on the table and then I would find my safe place and crawl under the tablecloth hanging low. Sometimes Ronveig joined me, the youngest grandchild, to play hide and seek. What may have been perceived by adults as play, for me it was a way to NOT see my father stumble across the room and remind me what was coming,. The families' other holiday tradition. of high emotions and turmoil between relatives attempting to deflate their feelings of anger and old hurts.

It was as a teenager that the eve of Christmas parties ended as my family could not continue with the upheavals and further pain resulting.. I can still remember at 71, one of my childhood dreams that would rarely come true. Living in Portland Oregon as a child I seldom saw it snow in December. Of course, snow would be a desire for a young child, to run and play with a snowman in the front yard. Mine was the wish that when dad would fall to the ground between the car and our front door, I would visualize snow falling and covering him like a warm blanket so the neighbors would not see him there. An embarrassment no child should have to endure and leave a hard to forget the memory.

Story of Mama Red

This story begins many months before Christmas.[1984] with the birth of MA MA Red's third litter of beautiful red setter pups. It was springtime in Bralorne, British Columbia. My neighbor Sherry has waited through the winter for their arrival. Ten little bundles arrived and it was quickly discovered 6 of her 8 teats were infected and could not sustain 10 bodies. WE lived in a mountain town, 5 hours from a vet. A call was made to decide on the next decision that was needed, with the vet's advice at the clinic. He could send antibiotics for her in the mail, but the pups would not survive till then. The most humane course was to drown them, all ten?

Sherry could not do it by herself and asked for my help and support. I will not forget this new mother frantically pacing as we loaded the young ones into a drawstring bag and headed to the raging river overflowing from winter snowmelt, behind the house.

I was to be the one to carry the bag to the water's edge and drop it into the frigid waters. I would finally walk back to the house after the whimpering faded away to silence. A burial spot was chosen and Sherry watched in grief as I dug the hole. I was about to fill it in when I heard a muffled cry from the bag. I was in disbelief as it grew louder. I opened the bag, it was not in my plan to see them, and there was a ball of bodies all clinging to each other. I pulled it apart to find in the very center a male pup breathing and whimpering away,.....louder and louder. I put him in my warm jacket pocket and headed back to the house. Mama Red waited anxiously at the door. knowing of my pup in my coat?  Her two healthy teats were more than enough to keep this little one alive and healthy. 

A name was needed right away and how determined he was to survive was the inspiration We found a german name of "Deter". and so it was. A week later we drove to the Vet to have both mother and pup examined. Both were thriving. A blessing for us all.

Even though this is not at Christmas time... The final story for me and Ma Ma Red happened on the following December Christmas morning. I was invited to join and meet Sherry's family for Christmas celebrations. It was a 5-hour drive out of the mountains to the high plateaus along the Al-Can highway heading north to Alaska. Deter was adopted at 6 months by a friend in town and would not be with us. After a late party Christmas eve, I was the first to awaken early and bundled myself up and headed out the back door to walk the red setter. The frigid brisk air was filled with bright sunlight. I could have used sunglasses as I squinted. I watched as she headed down the driveway instead of up the incline behind the house. Some critter caught her site hound eyes. I ran to chase her as I watched her cross the highway, very quiet on a Christmas morn. I called her to come back. she was enthralled by the burrows in the hard winter ground and animal scents.

Then I heard coming from the northern direction, a big rig heading down the road towards us. I immediately stopped calling her name. She was not obedience trained and was so unpredictable in her behavior. I stood motionless in prayer that she would stay on that side of the road till it passed us by. Just as if in slow motion I saw her raise her head, have eye contact with me, seemingly not aware of the truck barreling towards us. And in my worst nightmare, she dashed towards me and collided with the truck.. It did not stop and kept going as I looked upon her lying in the middle of the road.

I walked over and she was gone, out of pain I lifted her and it felt like a 7-year-old child as I carried her to the back porch 30 yards away. I laid her down and cried until I had the courage to awaken Sherry with the grim Christmas morning news. A bearer of very sad tidings.

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My Apartment Window in Lockdown 2020

A Covid-19 2020 Christmas To Remember

My Christmas prayer is to embrace my memories with compassion for myself and to acknowledge God's mercy. I hold Christ's birth as God's greatest gift to the world and his creation. The gift to myself this season of isolation for everyone's safety is to remember how deeply I discovered, we all need each other. Even my relationship with myself has spiraled down to the depths not felt for many years. Just as his gift to us is "relationship with Him", we manifest that each day through our personal relationships with family, friends, neighbors, strangers, and the creatures we depend on.

Amen

                                 

Casualties at Home

 it might as well have been a warzone. from 1954 to 1967.
 my diagnosis of PTSD at the age of 57 was proof
 of the battleground that described the house
 on 4400 SE Howe Lane in Arden Park, Milwaukie Oregon




To this day I have not been able to go back through the door, even in therapy as a meditation exercise. I stop at the front door, unable to touch the door nob or knock. As the oldest, I remember more painful events and to this day I am told by my sisters they do not believe many of my recollections. This is the main tragedy of a dysfunctional family, especially for the siblings. The age differences create different memories and a need to forget does not make room for other painful ones. Memories of domestic violence, child abuse, and neglect are best hidden away and forgotten. More easily done amongst strangers.

We were children, helpless to affect the events around us, yet learning how to manipulate as an individual survival strategy. There was no sense of a combat camaraderie as soldiers have, "in this together." And a lack of this attitude is even stronger as adults. It is as though we are all MIA as in "May [prefer] not return home". As of this date, it has been 8 years since my three younger sisters chose to stop seeing me or have any communication. Hurting each other is what we do. Forgiveness is what we need. Healing is what I pray we all will want for ourselves and each other. Mathew 18:21-35

This 1959 photo reminds me of a Christmas that was not an example of how we saw our family in 1993. My mother was at a loss for the reason we all were so willing to leave "home", in Oregon. All our cousins lived within a few miles of my aunts and uncles! So in 1993 on Christmas, my mother did not see or hear from any of us. I was in a Buddhist monastery in Carmel California mountains for 6-month silent retreat. Teri was in New Brunswick Canada with her two kids and a business to run. Lana was in Alaska with her new fiancé and Lisa in Miami running her Travel agency. We could not have lived any further from each other and from my mother. Hawaii was still a possibility? We all received calls, my mother was in the hospital in January and had a code blue twice. We should come to her asap.

I actually took two days to decide to leave. It was a long journey by jeep, bus, plane, and taxi to get there, and did not know if I would make it in time. I decided to go. The plane was held over in San Francisco because of bad weather in Portland. I could have been there faster by Greyhound bus! I asked to speak to my mother in her hospital room while waiting at the airport. They could not locate anyone by that name during my call. Then everyone near the check-in desk heard me yell out, "you have LOST my mother?". The next voice was my mother on the phone asking when will I be there, saying," I am fine, I am sitting up and finally eating some prime rib!" All my three sisters were there. My mother's broken heart from Christmas was already on the mend. My reunion with my mother was healing for us both. As I entered the hospital room she asked everyone to leave us to be alone. She looked up at me and smiled as she confessed she no longer was afraid to die, yet she must share her knowledge of the way I had been all my life as a child. "You have always been afraid, and I have not known how to help you." I was later to fully understand this fear as to how much I felt unloved by my mother and her inability to show me, until that day in the hospital. She loved me enough to tell me the only way she could express it. Psalm 147:3

What has Love got to do with it? 

From a distance, I have seen how each of my sisters survived and endured over the years.  Created fulfilling lives for themselves. I am very proud of them. Happier now for them than I am saddened by my not being able to share in their successes and triumphs. I miss not being able to love them directly, yet from wherever we are, I want them to have all they strive for because I know what we lived through as children and have all overcome. Acts 20:24

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