The holiday season is a time of
such wonder, regardless of your stage in life and career. It’s a time to
reflect, renew, and recharge, while simultaneously giving thanks for our most
precious blessings. During this holiday season, I thought I would take an
opportunity to share in this blog about my own most grateful memories from past
holiday seasons. I thought it would be appropriate to share during this season
of thanksgiving and celebration, those aspects of past holiday seasons that I
can most vividly recall and appreciate.
In reflecting on past holiday
seasons, every single memory that I am most grateful for begins and ends with
my mother: Jayme. My mother comes from humble beginnings, but resilient stock.
Both of her parents’ families emigrated from Italy to Northeastern Ohio in the
early years of the twentieth century. Her grandfathers, uncles, and father all eventually
labored in the steel mills that dotted the Ohio-Pennsylvania basin near the
banks of Lake Erie. My mother was raised with the wealth of a steel worker’s resolve,
a seamstress’ wisdom, and trans-Atlantic immigrants’ courage. But materially,
they never had much…
My father was raised of similar beginnings,
with a similar family journey. His family too emigrated from Italy in the early
years of the twentieth century. The men on his side of the family were also
steel workers for their entire careers. My father had different designs
however. So he dropped out of high school, ran away from home, and enlisted in
the Navy at 17 to fight in the Vietnam War. When my father returned from
Vietnam, he and my mother got married and moved west from Youngstown, Ohio, all
the way to Inglewood, California! He took a job as an airplane mechanic on the
tarmac at Los Angeles International Airport, and my mother stayed home in their
apartment to raise the kids. That same tarmac where my father worked as a mechanic
would eventually be the same location where he held my mother’s dying brother
in his arms as he succumbed to injuries he suffered from being backed over by a
catering truck in 1975. It was my uncle’s first night on the job; the job my
father helped him get…
I was born 3 years later, the last
of Jayme and Norman’s 3 children, all born in Southern California. This was far
and wide from the large extended family bosom of Italian immigrants in
Northeastern Ohio that encapsulated my parents’ childhood. And when I was less than
a year old my parents got divorced, and my father moved abroad to pursue other
professional opportunities. So the first holiday season of my lifetime was my
first of many where it was just my mother giving us the best she had, as a
single parent, on a secretary’s salary, with no college education.
It’s not until recent years that I
fully comprehended the immense challenge those circumstances presented for my
mother: to provide her 3 children with spectacular holiday seasons, gifts,
meals, and celebrations, year after year, with such limited resources. But we
never knew! My sisters and I had no idea about the year-long struggle it was
for my mother to ensure that every December all 3 of her children had gifts
under the tree and in their stockings, and delicious traditional Italian dinner
to eat to celebrate the season. And that eventually included enough to eat for
her friends from church, neighbors, and other social circles as well! (Her
cooking soon became the stuff of legend…). We had no idea how, even back in the
early 1980s, she had the foresight to set up an automatic withdrawal system with
her bank in order to ensure a small percentage of every one of her paychecks throughout
the year was placed in a holiday account so her kids would never know the
difference. And we had no idea how much of a sacrifice this truly was for her
ever year as a single mother raising 3 kids in a working class home, with
limited opportunities for professional and financial growth. It’s only in
recent years, as my sisters and I became parents, that we began probing our mom
for just how in the heck she did it every year! We NEVER missed celebrating a
single holiday season growing up, even though we now know how much of an immense
challenge that was for her to ensure year after year. It took planning the
whole year ahead from the time she took down last year’s tree. It also took a
whole lot of “No’s” every February through October, with her infinite wisdom to
know how much more we would appreciate the few “Yeses” she could provide us every
December.
I recall the December when I was in
2nd grade. My grandma gave me a few dollars to go to Pic’N’Save (Big Lots predecessor in California) to get my mom a gift. I recall
buying her this green, small, egg-shaped glass jewelry container. It was the
kind of small trinket that must have cost less than $3. In my 8 year-old mind,
I was thrilled to have found my mother THEE perfect gift, finally after so many
years in a row of her finding me THEE perfect gift! I remember lying awake at
night all December long in anticipation of her finally opening a gift from me!
Then, the morning she opened it, I was bursting with anticipation! When it was
finally her turn in the gift circle to open MY gift, I could hardly contain
myself! And when she did, I still remember to this day observing what I felt at
the time was the first miracle of my life: the green glass jewelry container was
emanating a bright shiny golden light out from inside of it to the other side
of the room. It was one of those images that you have to pause and glance again
to make sure you’re actually seeing what your eyes are telling you. And even
now, almost 30 years later, I’m still convinced it was a sign from above of the
radiant light my mother has always been, and always will be for our family,
despite her humble beginnings. Strangely, we’ve never spoken of the light I saw
that morning, but I know it was real.
This
holiday season, I wish you and yours a splendid season of celebration and
thanksgiving. I wish your families the brightest most radiant rays of light upon
you, and that the warmth of those rays finds your hearts. I also encourage you to
continue to serve as the same rays of radiant light upon your families,
neighbors, and community, much like my fondest holiday memories of how my
mother did the same for us and her friends every December. Thank you Barnwell
Staff, and thank you, Jayme…
Happy Holidays!
-Norman
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