There, in one of the little cubicles of the old secretary that now sits in my living room, were the cards she received when I was born. That's 1948, folks, and a long time to hold onto cards. Now I'm not saying she held on to every card she ever received, but at 75, she sure had the key ones.
And every December, Mom pulled out an old, red, leather address book she kept in the same desk and addressed the holiday cards she'd bought at Filene's or Jordan Marsh when they went on sale the previous January right after we took our tree down and packed away the lights and all the baubles. For a few days, she would sit at the dining room table, efficiently working her way through the address book, signing our names, stuffing the envelopes, affixing the stamps
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As an adult, I never did anything in the "normal" way. Some of it stemmed from time, some from money -- or lack thereof -- and some, from a need to not be my "mother," much as I adored her. (Note that I have never worn pink polyester pantsuits or pop-it beads.)
And so, for years, I sent no holiday cards. My world, however, was tenacious, and every December the mailbox overflowed with cards -- from people I saw regularly, rarely, never, or, perhaps, only once in my life. And every year, I tacked them up on the hand-hewn barn beams that crisscrossed my living room ceiling, and left them up until April began to hint at the possibility of spring. Now, in my apartment, I do the same. Carefully rolling scotch tape onto the back of each card, I plaster them on the inside of the door through which I enter the bigger world every day (with the overflow piled up in a large bowl nearby), and I take them down months later.
Not until four years ago, when my youngest child died, did I begin sending out holiday cards. Somehow it made sense: I could let everyone know that the family was OK, that we had figured out how to sustain loss and go forward, and, more than anything, that the people in my life have sustained me -- always, in all ways -- and that I love them. Really love them.
And so now each fall I plan my "card," so that I can send my heart into their homes just as they have so devotedly -- without expectation, now that's true giving -- sent theirs to me over all these years.
Today's mail brings my name in blocky red print, in small, delicate, finely formed letters, and in the loopy handwriting of my Auntie Cathy. She is the last of the three sisters that were my mother's family. The silliest, the flightiest, the one who always wore bright red lipstick and high heels, and played beano four nights a week. The one who filled a room with laughter and taught me that it was always OK to be myself.
I tape her card of angels playing violins against a green and red checkered background onto my door.
Annaliese Jakimides (pronounced "jah KIH mih deez") is a writer and artist living in Bangor. You can read more of her work in The Essential Hip Mama: Writing from the Cutting Edge of Parenting, published by Seal Press.
