Last night I broke a tradition that extends back to
the early 1980’s. That tradition is
driving into town to spend Christmas Eve with my friend Bill and Kim and dozens
of stoppers-bye touring the luminaries in their neighborhood. I was actually pulling my shoes on to go
there when the power dropped from my house and left me in the cerulean blue of
first darkness caught in a sudden snowstorm.
The house fell into perfect silence.
My friend Leo turned 87 a few months ago. He presently lives all alone just below me on
a slope overlooking the lake. He is
mostly confined to a chair in his living room, attended by all manner of
electric gadgets. Worried that he might
be without power for an extended time, I used my twice-as-smarter-than-me-phone
to call in the power outage and then to call off my trip into town.
I had to pull the emergency release on my garage
door before I could lift the door and back out into the dizzying swirls of
snow. I drove the short distance down to
Leo’s place.
I need to express this right now: I had a great
Christmas Eve with Leo.
We sat together in total darkness for about two
hours, talking about our lives. He loved
his wife and he loved my wife. I loved
my wife and I loved his wife. He told me
he was born on an Indian Reservation in eastern Montana and told me he could
recall, as a boy, thinking the age of fifteen was old and hoping he would
someday be that old.
“I wish I could be that old again,” he said.
We talked about how my Uncle Nick was his best
friend, about my cousins, how proud he is of his own sons and his daughter, his
grandchildren—though he gives every generation hell. We talked about everything you might imagine.
The lights eventually blossomed from darkness all
round us. We celebrated with a verbal “thanks”
to the linemen out there. I made sure
all of the electronics (and in particular the television) were in working
order. “Well,” I said as I stood by his
door to drive back to the light of my own house, “Merry Christmas, Leo!"
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
--Mitchell
Hegman