Well Darla, it is Christmas Eve again, I can’t recount how
many for me but it is fifteen for you. Darla looks incredulous at her Grandpa.
Papa I do not know your fascination with this date, it’s a cold and bare time
of year, we couldn’t have less, few squirrels, mice or roots and berries, and
we sit here with little to celebrate, but grey and desperate cold. Hard times spreads out in front of us until spring
brings us some meagre relief. I know your Christmas story well but its meaning
escapes me. Darla leans back against the cold wall and winces at the chill it
gives her back. Papa puts another twig on the tiny fire that sheds so little
heat Darla wonders what the point is, though at night that small light gives her
some safety or at least a feeling of such. Well I suppose says Papa that talk
of cheery Christmas is not a light for someone who has seen only dark Darla, I
understand your bitterness.
There is a part of my Christmas story
that I have not told as you have been too young till now, it is a true story,
but cruel to hear in the gloom of our current state. I have spoken of the
celebration, the tree, the good will of strangers to one another at this time
of the year, I have talked of family and friends by our sides when I was young,
but the story has a less than glorious side my dear.
Darla we had so much in those times, even the poorest in
Canada had more than you can imagine. Darla sat up and looked her Papa in the
eye, this was a new tale and any tale is good but a new one is as sweet as
anything that the tongue could taste. There was no pleasure in these times
except in a good story and Darla was always ready for the feast of words Papa
or others could feed her. Papa’s grim look though gave her pause.
Darla at all times of the year back then the average person
had much more than anyone today could dream. If you had any means at all there
was more food, more clothing, more everything than you can hope to imagine. You
have seen some of the remnants of past times in our travels but let me tell you
Darla it was a glorious time, a time so very rich. We all walked and proceeded
in a confidence that only generations of full bellies and warmth and comfort
could give. We were a beautiful, wasteful people always buying more than we
needed and making many things with little purpose and limited life that we
would discard without even a thought to the consequence. Our homes were full of
many things and too much of everything and each home was warm in winter and
cool in summer and we never suffered in any way. We had cupboards full of food,
and if we were wanting for anything there were great huge markets that had
unlimited food, that never emptied, ever. We suffered from ill health due to
too much food. Darla you have seen the ruins of the large market, close your eyes
and picture the smells of fresh bread, prepared meats, the colours, the abundance.
Darla could not imagine because she had never experienced anything like this,
her food was at best a raspberry or two in July, precious few for far too many
people and at worst the dung of some animal, and many various nasty and less than appealing morsels in between.
Now as I said Christmas was a wonderful time for friends,
family and human decency, but Darla it was also a time of even more grand
consumption, mounds of food no one could eat, drink and gifts of all sorts. It
was a time specifically known for giving and getting more than was necessary,
eating more than we needed and throwing much away without thought. Darla I have
always spoken with happiness about Christmas, but there is hellishness in it as
well, it was a signpost of all that was sick in my time, and an arrow pointing
to the bleak place we are today. We all knew deep down we were using too much,
the scientists and the moral, ethical voices of our time said we were using too
much. We didn’t listen, we were looking for something in our possessions, in
our consumption, something that wasn’t there.
Papa looked at Darla, pale, skinny, cold. Darla stared at
Papa and she saw a tear in his eye. No one cried in Darla’s days as loss was so
common and life so tenuous that all were numb to suffering, but Papa was
remembering the splendor and the waste, and in the comparison with the dire
nothing that Darla knows he experienced the loss for her. Papa cried for the
meat, potatoes, pie, candy that went in the trash. He cried for Darla as he had
watched her eat the foulest things with craven desire himself knowing that even
potato skins, banana peels or stale mouldy bread from his youth would be a
king’s feast in comparison. He cried for his own hell that is the knowledge of
the world his generation, and his father’s generation destroyed. Papa cried for
Christmas, he cried at allowing the truth to overcome the pleasant Christmas memory
he had built for Darla and himself.
Darla needed to know the truth about the old world for she
would have to build a new world if she could out of the mess left by the ones
called the Baby Boomers and their offspring, of which Papa was one of the later.
Darla needed the truth as a caution so if and when she and hers regained
control of the world they could make it better.
Darla cuddled into the crook of her Grandpa’s arm and hummed
the tune she knew was of Christmas, it was not Night but it was Silent, Darla
didn’t know about Holy, as Holy had no meaning when all hope is drained away.
This is a story and nothing more. It
is written not to upset, but to present a view. I am not depressed in telling this
tale but only made thoughtful and wish only thoughtfulness for you. We can make
a world where this story could never take place. We can write our own Christmas
story.
