On Saturday, we attend a Christmas party at the home of another long-term couple. Lights, garland, ribbons, and other decorations festoon every available surface in their house.
We both feel guilty. For years, our own home has been a model of holiday over-indulgence. One year, for example, our light show commanded so much raw current that simply starting our microwave oven would blow the fuses and plunge us into darkness.
We resolve to get ourselves into the spirit, and schedule our tree-trimming session for Sunday afternoon. And, sure enough, after church, Clyde ascends into the attic and begins pulling out the props: the rotating tree, the boxes of ornaments, the candles, the strings of lights.
When we open the box of ornaments, we stumble on last year’s Christmas Letter. (Each year, I write up a summary of the previous year’s events, then seal it in an envelope for us to find in the coming year.) Over jolly seasonal music from the satellite music station, I read the letter aloud: a chronicle of “our best Christmas ever.”
The Christmas spirit seizes us, so we plow into the boxes and prepare to drape flashing, sparkling baubles from one end of the joint to the other.
Then, we find The Box.
From the outside, The Box looks innocent enough: it’s a plastic tub, sealed with tape. Through the translucent sides, we can see snow village houses and cords and bulbs and gold paper. Clyde lifts the lid.
Atop the pile, arranged in perfect order, are the five embroidered stockings we ordered last year: one for Clyde, one for me, one for Tiger, one for Lilly…
… and, of course, one other.
Clyde lifts the last stocking gently, holding it up so I can see the name stitched across the top: Dixie Dawg.
Raw emotion — a yawning and overwhelming and forceful sense of loss — hits us both at the same time. We both burst into sudden, unexpected tears. For several second, we can do nothing more than hold each other and cry.
Later, still sniffling and dabbing at our eyes, we finish trimming the tree. At our feet, Chelsea Pup, young and happy and oblivious, lunges at low-hanging boughs and helps herself to an ornament or two.
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