Pieces of Our Lives

Sidney Rosser ran down the stairs to the basement. "Hey, Pop!" he shouted. "Gordon just lent me the coolest computer game. Come on up and let's try it out." Dr. Rosser sat in the corner of the basement with a tangle of electric wires in his lap. He looked up. There was an unpleasant scowl on his face. "What are you doing?" Sidney asked.
"I am engaged in my annual Christmas ritual," his father growled. "I'm unsnarling the Christmas tree lights that your mother put in the box last year. I wish that woman would learn to coil these lights properly before she puts them away so I wouldn't have to go through this every year."

"Can I help?"

"Yeah. Hold this end for me while I untangle the rest."

Sidney did so. While he stood there, he peered into the large open box where his family kept all their Christmas ornaments. There must had been a thousand of them. "After you get these lights untangled," he said, "I'll take the rest of the decorations upstairs."

"Nope," his father replied. "This year, your mother has a brand new bee in her bonnet."

"No ornaments on the tree?"

"Oh, yeah. There will be ornaments all right, but a different kind. Your mother figured that since you had reached the exulted age of 16 and are allegedly almost a man, that she would make us a people tree."

"A what?"

"A people tree, she calls it. She wants to hang different stuff on the tree instead of regular ornaments."

"Like what?"

"Search me. All I know is that she's ransacking the house right now looking for things to hang."

The last bit of tangled electric cord came loose. "Finally!" Dr. Rosser said as he began to carefully wrap the string of lights through his opened hand and around his elbow. "Now let's go upstairs and see what your mother has wrought."

---

The tree -- a fresh one this year -- had been set up in the living room in front of the big bay window. Sidney and his father walked through the archway and Dr. Rosser laid the carefully coiled light string on the couch. Just then, Mrs. Rosser walked in from the kitchen carrying an enormous box. "I had more stuff than I thought, praise the Lord," she said as she laid the box on the floor beside the tree. Then she turned to her husband. "I think we'd better string the lights first," she said. "Did you get them untangled?"

Dr. Rosser nodded. "Yes I did, no thanks to you," he replied sarcastically.

Mrs. Rosser only smiled in reply. Dr. Rosser picked up the lights from the couch. "Go around to the back of the tree, Sidney, and you can help me with these.... What the...?"

"What's wrong, Sid?" Mrs. Rosser asked her husband.

"These lights are all tangled up again."

"But you just untangled them, Pop," Sidney said.

"I know that. Here, Sidney. Hold this end."

While Dr. Rosser busied himself untangling the lights for a second time, Sidney asked," What's in the box, Mom?"

Mrs. Rosser smiled. "These are some of the pieces of our lives, Sidney. I thought it would be nice this year to have a 'people tree' instead of a regular Christmas tree. This is stuff that I've saved over the years -- mementos. We'll hang them all over the tree instead of ornaments. Then when our guests ask us about them, we can tell the stories behind each." She reached into the box and pulled out a small white garter. "See?" she said happily. "Here's the traditional garter your father bought me for our wedding."

Sidney raised his eyebrows. "You're going to put that on the tree?"

"I most certainly am." Then she giggled. "But, hopefully, I won't have to tell that story too often."

"Thank you," Dr. Rosser commented dryly.

"What else is in the box?"

"Oh, lots of stuff. There's the old pocket watch that once belonged to my grandfather. Believe it or not, it still runs. And there is your Uncle Ike's Army dog tags. He was killed in Vietnam, you know. Then, there is your Great-Aunt Maggie's high school ring... The one she thought she had lost in the toilet and paid a plumber two days work, only to discover it was sitting on top of her dresser all the time. And there's your great-grandmother's old cameo broach... And the big, fuzzy dice that your father had hanging from his rearview mirror on his '57 Chevy."

"I've got it now," Dr. Rosser announced. "Sidney, keep holding onto your end so this string won't get tangled up again, and I'll start putting the lights on the tree."

Ten minutes later, it was done. Then Dr. Rosser plugged the string into the wall socket. Every light blazed forth, just like it was supposed to do. Dr. Rosser breathed a sigh of relief.

"How are we going to hang this stuff," Sidney asked. "There are no hooks."

"I bought a little tube of this superduper glue and some black fishing line," his mother answered. "We'll make little hangers. You cut the line and paste it to each object in a little loop, Sidney. Just don't stick your fingers together. It'll take all your father's skill as a surgeon to pry you loose."

Sidney sat down at a table spread with newspaper and his mother handed him the first item. "What's this?" he asked.

"That is a little plastic trumpet that we put in your stocking one year. Don't you remember? You tooted that thing all over the house and nearly drove us crazy. When you got tired of it, I was so relieved that I almost threw it away."

"I would've burned it!" Dr. Rosser said from the couch where is was now reclining.

Sidney put the tiny trumpet to his lips and blew. It instrument sounded like a sick duck call. "I remember this now," Sidney said happily. "I was four or five when I got it." He cut a small piece of the black fish line, dabbed a bit of the superduper glue on each end, and the bond was instantaneous. He handed the horn to his mother, who put it on the tree.

Next was a little plastic cup that belonged to a tea party set Sidney's mother had as a child. And there was a silver spoon that his father had had as a baby. Then there was a set of canceled theater tickets that belonged to his mother. "Your daddy took me to see "The Marriage of Figaro" when we were courting. It was the only time that he ever took me to an opera." Then she pulled a thin sheet of paper from her box. "And here is the traffic ticket he got when we were on the way home later on. He was caught going 50 miles an hour in a 35 mile-and-hour zone. Cost him $10."

"You kept that!?" Dr. Rosser exclaimed.

"You'd be surprised what I've kept," she answered mysteriously.

Sidney turned to his father. "Did you really get a speeding ticket, Pop?"

"Yes I did," he replied. "But don't you get any bright ideas, young man. It was late at night and the cop probably just needed someone to talk to."

One by one, Mom's treasures from the past went up on her people tree and when it was filled, only the top remained. "We need something to put on the peak," Sidney said. "How about the old angel we used to have up there when I was a kid. Do you still have it?"

"Of course I still have it," his mother replied. "But I have something much better in mind. That tree is filled with our memories. They are the tokens of our lives and our achievements. We need something really important to put on the top, and I have just the thing."

She left the room, but in a moment was back. In her hand was a tiny pair of shoes. "These are your baby shoes, Son. I'm glad I didn't have them bronzed or we couldn't hang them."

"You're going to put those old shoes on the top of the tree?" Sidney said. "We need something prettier than those old scuffed things."

"To us, these shoes are the most beautiful things in the world," his mother answered with tears in her eyes. "And they certainly do belong on top of our people tree." Then the Rossers put their arms around their son and hugged him. "Your mother is right Son," his father said, "We've managed to a lot of good things in our lives, but our crowning achievement will always be you."

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Ed Price spent 35 years in print and broadcast journalism. He is author of 15 books. After becoming an ordained minister he settled with his wife on a farm in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, to study God's word and to write. Ed and Patty are the parents of three girls, have one grandchild, and cater to the every whim of two spoiled cats.
© 2009 Ed Price - All rights reserved. Visit his website, The Loving Heart.

This column is used with permission.