Six Christmases

My holiday memories are dominated by my six Christmases in Westord, Mass –my parents’ hometown. We only ended up there because of some twists of fate.

My father planned to retire from the Navy in the mid 1960’s and the intent was to move to Florida at that time. However, in one week my brother and mother were both hospitalized with critical illnesses, thus my father re-enlisted. Eventually he retired and we moved to Westford only because my uncle had a house to rent us.

In Westford, I lived within a few miles of my father’s family, and few dozen miles of my mother’s family. And there were snow-covered maples and evergreens, the way that sitcoms and holiday cartoons suggested that Christmas was meant to be.

Without those family hospitalizations my holiday memories would be of Christmas in a ranch house with a grassy ground and a palm tree in the front yard (a nightmare holiday scenario that was eventually realized when we moved to the Orlando area when I was a teenager).

Is it wrong that every holiday season, that I am grateful for my mother’s pulmonary embolism  and my brother’s ruptured appendix?

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