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Christmas Contest Winner '98 First Place "Christmas in July" by Kate Rauhauser-Smith

The best holiday gift I ever received was given on a hot, sticky July afternoon. Who gave it? That is a very good question. Perhaps I will know the answer when I sit chatting with my Brother in our Father's house. But, truth be told, who gave it or why it was given just isn't that important.

What is important is how my husband got his smile back.

When we marry we have little or no control over our in-laws. They, like so many other things in life, just seem to happen. The luck of the draw. Now, I like my in-laws just fine, particularly when we're on the phone. As opposed to being in their home.

I really like my sister-in-law. My brother-in-law, since he's sobered up 6 years ago, has turned out to be one of my favorite people.

But for some reason, from the moment I met her, my husband's grandmother grated on my very last nerve. I just did not like this woman. She was selfish, snipey and judgmental.

Everything that everybody did was belittled and suspect. Everything from my mother-in-law's decorating decisions to my choice to nurse our children was a target for this woman's rapier tongue.

However, my husband adored her and she, him. He was the oldest grandchild and had been the pet of all the grandparents. This particular woman and her husband had taken him on trips all across the country. They purchased mountains of toys for birthdays and Christmas. If my husband didn't like what his mother made for a meal he had only to walk up the street to Grammy's house. There he was guaranteed a meal prepared to order.

His eyes shine with the memories of the love lavished on him and the security he felt in her house that he found no other place in the world. Unfortunately, this rather opinionated woman had an intimate association with Marlboros. It gave her an air of authority but ultimately, killed her.

She smoked like a movie star from the 30's, cigarette held delicately between elegant fingers, her hand turned palm-up, Marlene Dietrich-style. She never left the thing hang from her lips, always taking long, smooth drags, holding the smoke in her lungs and allowing it to escape as she spoke. One might expect Humphrey Bogart or Cary Grant to walk into the room and pay court to her.

As her two-pack a day habit caught up with her, the monster ravaged, first, her person, creating a wisp of the woman she was in health. Then it attacked her ability to breath. It was torturous to watch her try to speak. At the end the rasp and rattle of her failing lungs was audible across the room.

Finally, the beast stole her grasp on reality and the comfort of recognizing the souls who loved her. Her brain, starving for oxygen, created horrific scenarios which she lived for the final weeks of her life. Her family was torn apart by the suffering they watched her go through. Anger mixed with tears as they watched her die by the inch.

My heart of hearts stayed with her till the very small hours of her birthday that July. He says she came in and out of understanding. They spoke of trips to North Carolina, games of gin rummy and 'Dallas'. He told her it was okay to go, that Grampa was waiting for her and it was time for her to rest.

We buried her less than a week later.

Her personal possessions, such as they were, were stored in the attic at my in-laws' house. Mom had no inclination to go through them so there we sat, sweating in the close, stifling heat of a high-summer's day. My love's face was streaked and smeared with grime and cob webs and tears.

In his big hands he held a tiny Christmas ornament. The childishly crafted pine cone angel was rather the worse for wear having about 30 years behind her. She was wrapped in crisp white tissue paper and stored in a box with crystal and china ornaments I knew totaled hundreds of dollars.

A note in familiar scrawl was packed with the angel. It read, "To Grammy From Davey Will you marry me?" And written in the beautiful hand of the woman I would have sworn had ice in her veins was the response. "Yes. I love you. I will love you forever."

Today, as my husband brings boxes of Christmas trim and treasures from our own attic, he carefully opens the one marked, "Good Christmas". From it he removes the small white box, takes out the tissue paper, lays the note aside after a brief caress and hangs the angel in her place of honor. He smiles and sees the face of love. "Merry Christmas, Grammy. I love you."

Was it chance that lead him to that note? Was it God? Or was it a Grandmother's love that could not be held back by the confines of death? As I said, it really doesn't matter.

His heart is alive for the first time in his adult life. And I have a crotchety old harpy to thank for the fine man I share my life with.

Merry Christmas, Grammy. I love you, too.

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