Christmas supper. The little girl beside me ate ferociously as though she had not eaten in 13 years when in fact she had already eaten two breakfasts, one Christmas lunch, half a bag of tortilla chips, a quarter of a cheese log, and various holiday snacks which all featured onion dip as a main ingredient.
As she ate, she bounced up and down in her seat with excitement. The china cabinet shook beneath each impact.
“You might want eat slower,” I said, watching the child scoop food into her mouth like shoveling coal into a locomotive furnace.
“I can’t slow down,” she said, mouthful. “We have to hurry.”
The girl was eating fast because we HAD to hurry and finish SUPPER because we were exchanging PRESENTS after the MEAL. I’m surprised she didn’t choke on her mac and cheese.
After supper, we all had jobs on my wife’s cleanup crew. My wife doles out kitchen jobs according to skill level and experience. My job, for example, was transferring leftovers from their respective Tupperware containers into slightly smaller Tupperware containers.
We do this even though the original containers were working just fine because transferring leftovers is a cherished holiday job which accomplishes the very important purpose of not allowing anyone’s husband to watch football.
The little girl’s job was carrying Tupperware containers to the fridge and placing them on shelves. The little girl is blind, but I trust her with this job because she is a very capable young woman, and over the years she has learned our kitchen and knows exactly where to spill things.
Thus, I would hand the child a huge Tupperware bowl of something like boiled okra, whereupon she would take the bowl into both hands, carefully approach the refrigerator, spill the bowl onto the floor, at which point my wife would gaze upon the huge mess and remark, “You need to transfer this to a smaller container.”
After cleaning the kitchen, we wandered into the living room. We all sat around the tree. The child sat squarely in my lap. She was given the job of being the Christmas Present Passer Outter.
“This present’s for Aunt JJ,” said the child, passing out gifts. “And this one’s for Uncle Sean, and this one’s for Jessica…”
Twenty-six-year-old Jessica sat on the other side of the room. She is my wife’s former student. A lifetime ago, my wife became a math teacher even though nobody forced her to. One of her favorite students was Jessica. Jessica’s mother was murdered, she sort of became part of our family.
She is a mostly quiet young woman. In social settings, she fades into the wallpaper and you barely know she’s there. But if you are, by chance, able to get Jessica to smile it feels like you’ve just cured cancer.
We watched the little girl bounce up and down with glee as we all opened gifts. It was hard not to feel Christmas cheer when the whole house was shaking beneath the kid’s bounces.
Jessica smiled.
Everyone opened the girl’s presents. Jess got chocolate. My wife got an apron finger-painted by the little girl. I got a painting, handmade, with a big yellow sunshine made of handprints, with writing that reads “You are my sunshine.”
“I made this for you,” said the blind child, “because you literally are my sunshine, Uncle Sean.”
Then we hugged. She hugs me so completely, so entirely, that even though she is almost a teenager, with an insanely bright future ahead of her, she still sort of feels like an infant in my arms. And I can’t even remember what my life was like before her.
“Merry Christmas, Becca,” I said.
“I’m hungry,” she replied.
Sean Dietrich is a columnist and novelist known for his commentary on life in the American South. He has authored nine books and is the creator of the “Sean of the South” blog and podcast.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
Don’t miss out! Subscribe to our newsletter and get our top stories every weekday morning.
