Christmas Ghosts

It’s strange what makes you miss someone who was once as much a part of your life as your shoes or the tricky lock on the front door. I always miss Kate when signs and banners need to be made. I look up at the colorful mandala she drew hanging on my office wall, the perfectly spaced lettering spelling out a line from a Tom Paxton song, “My own life is all I can hope to control. I live my life for the good, good of my soul.” Although I can write with both hands and they each have different handwriting -which gave me some trouble when I went to vote and signed in with a signature that didn’t match the one on record- neither of them is neat enough for lettering a sign. But what’s making me miss her now is the flurry of gift wrapping, the blues and silver of Chanukah, the red and green of Christmas, rolls of the stuff taking up too much space in our office. I can’t wrap things at all, they wind up looking like a drunk kindergartener has had at them. Kate was always flabbergasted by my absolute lack of visual spatial abilities, by how I was always opening groceries wrong because it just isn’t obvious to me how they’re meant to go. She’d show me the much easier way they were designed, like she was trying to explain it to a dog or maybe a hamster. Whether I would remember next time was anyone’s guess. So she was the wrapper of gifts, magically looking at objects and cutting the paper to the correct size and folding the corners precisely, tying the ribbon in a perfect bow not like my droopy rabbit ears. The only thing I had to contribute was an old trick of my Dad’s. To keep people from guessing what they were, he would place objects in cigar boxes or glass jars and wrap those, completely concealing the shape of the actual gift. These days, I don’t give many gifts since I don’t have much of anyone left. Most of the people I do give gifts to are children, who are in such a rush that they don’t stop to judge the bits where the edges don’t meet. There’s Cooper, Kate’s sister’s son, who should have two aunt Kates’ but only has one. Coop’s mom works a minimum wage job in Gorham, ME so she can’t get him much, so his Great Uncle Dave and I help out. There’s also Ellie, who is 4. Her mother is a former client who joined my staff. I spent the night before Ellie’s birth with her, on the cot intended for the other parent, trying to keep her from panicking. I was in the waiting area when they took her for her C section, and suddenly a doctor appeared in his surgical scrubs and demanded that I gown up because she was so freaked out that they needed me to come hold her hand during the procedure. Afterwards, they took her to the Cardiac ICU, and handed me the second NICU wristband so I could go visit the tiny new life while her mother couldn’t. They live in a small town in New Hampshire now, subsisting on disability and food stamps, which barely keep them in food for the month, so I put a couple of things in the mail, and something for her mom, who never gets anything herself. And there's Ethan and JJ, a long ago client's kids, 11 and 12 now but I remember them as babies, Ethan's curious chubby hand reaching for my glasses while I held him, grabbing and breaking them and JJ as a small blur of energy zipping hazardously around the space during sunday evening dinner. Now they are polite pre-teens who call me "Miss Kate" when they visit and join every sport their school offers. Adding a little to the holiday joy for these kids is how I make my peace with the ghosts this time of year, how I atone for my cold, unlit menorah, the unsaid blessings.