by Byron Thorson
Louisiana, USA
My mother was the heart and soul of our small family around Christmas time. Everything centered around her. You would have had to know her to fully understand why. Small of physical stature, big of heart, and strong-willed, that was my mom.
She organized all the decorations for our house every year, including our silver artificial tree and some very special pink ornaments. The tree was old though carefully kept, and the ornaments were even older, possibly older than me.
She loved that tree and loved the ornaments even more. When fully assembled with the lights shining on it, the effect was awe-inspiring. I have looked for years over half the country for more of those ornaments. The style is common, but I don’t think that particular shade of pink is made anymore.
On December 13th, 1977, I was working 60 miles away when Dad called and said Mom was in the hospital. I went numb with the next three words I heard: “We lost her.”
After her funeral, we couldn’t bear having all the Christmas stuff — mom’s Christmas stuff — around. We weren’t thinking clearly enough to donate it to a church or other charity. We took it to a flea market just before Christmas. We managed to get rid of most of it except for the tree and those beautiful pink ornaments.
It was nearly closing time at the flea market when an old man and his grandson came wandering by. He wasn’t even looking in our direction when Dad hollered, “You want a tree with some ornaments?” The old man replied, “Can’t afford it this year.”
Dad said, “Here. Take this. It’s yours. Merry Christmas.”
I was stunned at what Dad had done, but when I saw the gigantic smile on the old man’s face, I felt better.
There was no Christmas at our house that year. Dinner consisted of baloney and cheese sandwiches and cola. But maybe, just maybe, that tree stood fully assembled one more time, with those beautiful pink ornaments hanging from it. And a huge smile on the grandson’s face.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:25 — 3.2MB)
Slight error after my story. “Originally published Dec. 17, 2016”. Five days from now? [Ed: whoopsie. Fixed that.]……………. I still get very depressed around this time of year, but seeing this again lifted my spirits considerably. Thank you, Heroic Stories, for the rerun,
I got a little…ok A LOT…choked up when I read this. My mom passed 4 years ago, and she used to keep the tree up all year because she believed every day was Christmas. She also was a very generous soul who would’ve loved what your father did. Thank you for sharing this.
This brought back so many memories. My mother had a silver tree too. After years of my dad and brother going out and bringing back some scraggily spruce tree, from the woods, she finally had enough. We were stunned. It took some getting used to but it was beautiful.
Too bad the family didn’t keep the ornaments,at least, as a reminder of their mom.
To just get rid of it all…not good.
Christmas is a time of giving. An unplanned gift, and one that was so appreciated by the stranger and the boy . . . what could have been a more appropriate time for the tree and ornaments to have found a new home.