Mike had always been Mr. Christmas, weaving glittery garlands along the stairway banister, draping them around the mirror over the fireplace, outlining the windows with garlands. Garlands everywhere. He arranged the 12 chorister figures, including the little dog in the Santa hat and the boy with a French horn, on the bar in the living room. A wreath at the front door and another over the fireplace. Traditionally we chose a tree together, but Mike was always the decorator. Over the years he’d collected Christmas ornaments from our travels—Germany, England, Vienna, Scotland. There were also whimsical ornaments, a “Wizard of Oz” tin man, and Dorothy. There was a stuffed fat ballerina in leotards, a sparkly Peter Pan, and the treasured ornaments for each grandchild.
On Christmas Eve, Mike was always the one who handed out the presents, waiting for each person to unwrap and exclaim over the gift before going on to the next. He started with the youngest, then moved on in order of age until Aunt Hazel, in her 80s, had her turn. Then he would start over again.
“Oh, look! Here’s one for Kerry from the Wicked Witch of the West!”
“Here’s one for Subei from Rudolph!”
Traditionally he wrapped and labeled the presents. To Ashley from the Tooth Fairy. To Marilyn from Mr. Claus.
I did some of the shopping for gifts, though mostly Mike and I gift shopped together. The annual letter was my doing. I prepared the house for our family overnighters and did most of the grocery shopping. Making the Christmas lasagna was usually a joint project, though sometimes I got solo lasagna duty. But really? All of the trappings of Christmas were Mike’s. Every aspect of Christmas was Mike-infused.
Back in 2009, just after the first of December, Mike retrieved box after box of decorations from the attic and schlepped them downstairs. When I wandered into the living room with a draft of our holiday letter to run past him, he was dragging lights and garland out of two boxes and piling them on the couch.
“How’re you doing?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said, not looking up as he straightened out a long strand of blue garland.
“I think I’ve finally finished our letter. Can I read it to you?”
“Of course.”
He still didn’t look up.
I started, “2009 was filled with …”
“We need more garland.”
“Okay, but Mike, can you listen to our letter? Let me know what you think?”
He glanced my way. “Sure, I can do that.”
“2009 was a year filled with endings and beginnings …”
Mike walked out of the room, went into my office and started rummaging through the desk. “Where are the thumbtacks?”
I started the silent “Ode to Joy” chant, “It’s not his fault. It’s not his fault. It’s not his fault, no, it’s not.“ and found the thumbtacks for him.
By lunchtime, Mike had emptied all of the boxes, the contents of which were strewn all over the living room, on the couch, chairs, bar, floor. In addition to the overabundance of accumulated Christmas decorations, there was a large ceramic Easter bunny, a spring wreath, ceramic Halloween jack-o-lanterns, a whimsical witch poised on her broomstick, and other tchotchkes. I managed to repack and put away a few out-of-season items while Mike was struggling to get a string of outdoor lights up and working around a patio trellis. He was beyond the point of moving from Step A to Step B if Step A wasn’t working, and he soon gave up on the trellis lights. In addition to mismatched garlands, a tree with ornaments huddled in a few places and bare in others, there was the Easter bunny, the jack-o-lanterns, and the witch, items I’d not been fast enough to pack away and move out of the living room when I repacked other autumn, spring, summer items. It didn’t matter. None of that mattered.
We were all determined to keep things as normal as possible for Mike. On Christmas Eve he sat beside the tree and began distributing gifts. He handed them out as quickly as possible, one after the other, until the kids were overwhelmed with the piles in front of them, opening one quickly, setting it aside, going on to the next. Even though I’d made sure the “To” labels were clear and accurate, several gifts reached the wrong hands. Mike handed 3-year-old Mika a small, nicely wrapped box, which she opened eagerly. Inside was a pair of earrings. Mika loved, still loves, all things sparkly, and she was quite pleased with her gift.
“Oh, those are for Gramma,” Mike said, reaching to take the package from her.
She clutched the package in both hands and hung on, looking to be on the verge of tears.
I suggested Mike find another package for Mika. There were plenty.
I moved over beside Mika.
“Your earrings are beautiful,” I said. “May I see them again?”
She loosened her grip to give me a peek. In the meantime, Mike was again racing to get packages dispersed. I pointed out that the earrings were for pierced ears. She readily agreed to let me keep them safe for her until she got her ears pierced. She even allowed as how I might wear them on special occasions.
On Christmas morning, Mike made a big pot of coffee as he always did. Except that he’d put in coffee for two cups and water for 12. One by one, people quietly walked to the sink and poured their coffee out. He was at a point where as soon as he started one thing he was eager, even anxious, to go on to the next.
“Shall I put the lasagna in now?” he asked.
“Let’s wait until around 3,” I said. “It’s only 10 now,” as if telling him the time would make a difference.
“Oh, okay,” he said, walking to the refrigerator and taking out the lasagna.
Sharon asked if Mike wanted to take Sunny for a walk with her and Enzo, their big, gentle, moose of a dog.
“Sure,” he said, getting Sunny’s leash.
I put the lasagna away.
Mike was back with Sunny within minutes. Once out, he needed to get back home.
Late that afternoon, before we sat down to dinner, Mike got the martini shaker from the living room bar. He didn’t drink martinis, but those of us who did appreciated his expertise. However, remembering the morning coffee, I told Sharon I thought maybe we should ask Dale to mix up the martinis.
“I think Dad needs to do what he always does.”
She was right, of course. Mike filled the shaker and did his martini-shaking dance to the rhythm of “La Cucaracha,” then poured the icy mixture into the glasses he loved so much he once tried to become a martini drinker.
After the toast and the first overwhelming sip of what might have been straight vermouth, martinis sat on kitchen counters and family room side tables, and I poured the wine.
Mike had set the table early in the day. As always, he’d used his Aunt Ursie’s white linen tablecloth, the one he’d had washed with special care at a French Hand Laundry. But unlike earlier Christmases, the table was set with a hodgepodge of dishes, some of his family china, some Christmas dishes. The silverware, too, was hodgepodge, all sadly symbolic of the increasing hodgepodge of Mike’s brain.
I shifted a few things around, making sure that every setting had a knife and fork, and let the rest go. Matching china patterns, placements of utensils, napkins on the “right” side of the plates—none of that was consequential.
Mike sat at the head of the table and served the Christmas lasagna. He served sausage lasagna to the vegetarians, vegetable lasagna to the carnivores, but that was an easy fix. Mike ate quickly, not joining the conversation. When he was finished, he carried his plate to the kitchen, then came back to clear the table. “Not yet,” first one and then another laughed as they guarded their unfinished dinners.
“Shall I get the cake?” Mike asked.
Stalling for time, I walked him to the kitchen where the very fancy cake still sat in its bakery box. “Can you get the cake cutter?”
“Sure,” he said, and went to the china cabinet and took the cake cutter from the drawer.
“How about the cake plate?”
Again he went to the cabinet and brought out the cake plate.
“Shall we make coffee?”
“Sure.”
He filled the coffee pot with water, put the filter in top, and put in two heaping tablespoons of coffee. I added more coffee as Mike took the cake from the box.
Mike cleared the table of dinner plates and brought in the cake. Unlike most Christmases, no one overindulged with second helpings of lasagna in 2009. They were lucky to have finished one helping.
We sang “Happy Birthday” to Dale, Mike served the cake, poured the coffee, finished his dessert quickly, took his cup and plate to the kitchen, and came back to clear the table. He hovered until one by one people finished and gave up their dessert plates. I followed him into the kitchen and put the dessert plates into the dishwasher as he rinsed them. He’d already loaded up the dinner plates. When the last dessert plate was placed in the rack, Mike announced he was going to bed.
“It’s a little early,” I told him.
“I’m going to bed.”
He stood in the hall outside the dining room and said, “Goodnight. I’m going to bed.”
People called their thanks out to him as he climbed the stairs.
By this time the kids were playing with their gifts, or watching TV. The adults lingered at the table, sad and drained.
We bemoaned the fact that so far no anti-anxiety meds had eased Mike’s agitation. We tried to guess at the next progression. Hazel said over and over, “I just don’t know why this had to happen to such a nice man. Mike was always such a nice man.”
I knew without a doubt that this was the last time we would all be seated around this table that had for decades held so much food for so many of us.
When the house payment came due on the first of January, I didn’t take the mortgage coupon from its special little box. I didn’t take my checkbook from the drawer. I didn’t make a house payment. Not then, nor the next month, nor the next.