Good Chaos

Also known as Christmas

Greetings from our home in Cleveland, where the day began nearly two hours before dawn. When grandchildren are here, we are the earliest of risers. This delights our dogs, Franklin and Walter, and gives us something to brag about when the parents in this house finally rise. Who’s old now?

Within minutes of awakening, grandson Milo was working to finish the Home Alone LEGO set, under the supervision of his younger sister, Ela. There was a brief debate about whether she was helping, but we quickly decided that constant commentary is, indeed, a show of support--and who doesn’t need that?

The potted amaryllis sitting across from them on the table is on the verge of erupting. We’ve been tracking its progress with the commitment of botanists. We are hoping for a Christmas bloom.

My writing desk in the sunroom has been cleared of all signs of productivity except for the completed puzzle of a family photo, made on the day after the election. On November 6, I shared this photo on social media to answer the kindest and most common question, with a single line: This is how Sherrod is doing.

A large print of this picture currently adorns our refrigerator, held there by the tiniest dots of magnets. Ela remembers it as the day of her seventh birthday, hence the balloons. I remember it as the moment I knew we were going to be okay. Life has taught me to trust the feeling that arrives like a whisper in your ear. You don’t know where it came from, but you know to believe it.

Milo assembled this puzzle in record time yesterday, and we agreed that piecing together the faces of people you love makes you notice things about them for the first time. A little weird, but also funny. We talked about how lucky we are that they love us, too.

As I write this, the children have shifted into the family room behind me because Grandpa just started playing his new guitar, my birthday gift to him last month. He is playing songs by the Beatles and Bob Dylan, but I know it’s only a matter of time before he starts singing his anti-NAFTA song, which has been a work in process for decades. The children will have questions about these lyrics. Grandpa will be happy to answer every one of them.

When Grandpa played Here Comes the Sun, I mentioned that he sang this for me on our second date. Grandma and Grandpa went on a date? Our grandchildren found this hilarious.

Granddaughter Ela is standing on a chair from my childhood. “You had that when you were a kid?” her brother said. “Wow, that’s old.”

Ela has been spending a lot of time with the Christmas village in our living room. She stands on a chair from my childhood to better see it and to have long conversations with all those little people with busy lives. Her cousin, Carolyn, was in charge of building it this year. She is the reason we have so many new people roaming the streets of bookshelf tops, having delivered a gentle, well-deserved reprimand earlier this month.

“Grandma,” she said to me, pointing to the various neighborhoods. “There is not a single mother with her daughter in this entire village.”

How did I never notice this?

That’s what she wanted to know, too.

As soon as the first mother-and-daughter set arrived in the mail, I texted this photo to Carolyn’s mother to make sure she knew I had listened to her. She will be here on Christmas Day, and I look forward to watching her discover the female invasion of our Christmas village. So many women laughing and talking, building community as women do.

Every so often, Milo calls out “Grandma” and begins to sing what became our family song on the day he first read aloud this rusted sign that hangs in our living room. Whenever he does this, the expectation, always, is that everyone in the room will start singing with him. And so we do.

We have changed one word in the lyrics to avoid offending Franklin and Walter:

Our house is a very, very, very fine house

With two dogs in the yard

Life used to be so hard

Now everything is easy ‘cause of you.

Every time, we point to one another on the word you. I often fight tears as we sing—something about those young voices so loud and clear—but all our grandchildren know to say “good tears” if they see my eyes fill. I can’t imagine a day when that will not happen, I am grateful to say.

All eight grandchildren will be here for Christmas, for the first time in years. It will be loud and chaotic, and I am not going to worry about a single thing I forgot to do. Finally, I am learning to surrender to love.

Merry Christmas from our home to yours. If this is a difficult time for you, may the holiday land gently.