An Ornamental Memory

 

It was the '73-'74 school year and I was in Fourth Grade at McQueeney Elementary. My teacher was Mrs. Bratton; I think I have mentioned elsewhere that she was the Miss Othmar to my Linus. We had been Jehovah's Witnesses for almost three years (three years is a significant amount of time; for instance,  when you are nine years old; it is 1/3 of your life). Christmas time was always fraught for us, both at school and personally, when the heart yearned for celebration, color, community, and of course presents. We were not absolutely cold turkey on the subject; we still watched all the Christmas specials and attended the SMI Christmas Party (with its free meal, presents for the workers, and free candy for the kids, it would have been financially foolish not too). But there were no presents to be unwrapped, no home decorations, no wishing anybody Merry Christmas or even Happy Holidays, without it being a moral quandary. At school it just made you odd.

So you can imagine my mixed feelings when Mrs. Bratton gave everyone in our class a little satiny ornament like this with each student's name on it in glitter. Could I accept it? I felt I had to. Did I want to accept it? I absolutely did. It was a momento from my favorite teacher, my crush; although part of a class-wide presentation it had MY name on it. It made me feel 'seen', to use the phrase. Not only as part of all the other kids, but apart from them, even apart from my brothers, a beloved unit but all too often seen as 'the herd'. My own name there, written in golden glitter. My mother was not so deep in JW brainwashing that she had the heart to make me throw it away, but of course we had no Christmas tree to hang it on. It was stowed away.

When we came back to Christmas sometime in the late Seventies I could at last hang it up. Through the years it has become a little battered and worn, but not bad for a cheap little something over half a century old. It's 'silk' is unraveling a bit amd it lost its original little loop to attach the hook. That has been replaced with a yarn bookmark that belonged to Mike, one of his own sentimental Christmas presents, attached with a pushpin. Once I pass there will be little reason for anyone to keep it anymore: it is one of those 'Tragic Treasures' that has no real value except to me. There are few things I would regret the loss of more; it is irreplaceable. But the memory is the important part. And here it is.