Christmas Wrapping

For those unable to make peace with their pain, happiness no longer becomes an option. You wake up each morning not wondering what new adventure lay ahead -- but whether you'll get through the day without hurting.

In my case, it was the loss, all too soon, of my childhood. Although I couldn't have known it at the time, having to be the man of the house at 10 years old stole something precious from me.

At the time, I thought our lives were normal -- the poverty, the violence, the constant leaving of my friends (just when I'd make new ones, we'd be evicted and have to move to another town). Some of them weren't allowed to play with me.

"What was that all about?" I wondered, too young to grasp the consequences of having a career criminal for a stepfather.

All of this excuses nothing. I know that. But, in a small way, I hope, it explains some things.

A heart that's battered at such a young age becomes tentative, afraid. It's unsure what to do -- even though its only function is, simply, to open itself, to make room for love. Disappointment and disillusionment follow. Trust is elusive, confidence stifled. Survival demands it.

A dozen or so years ago, the sense that something was wrong grew stronger. Logically, I could comprehend the facts of my life, the whole sorry spectacle. But I was also proud that my brother, my sister, and I (as well as my mom) were all able to overcome those circumstances and make something of our lives. We had risen above it. We were all "fine."

At the same time, I was still a bit adrift, unsteady.

So I found a friend -- a godsend, really. With her help, I worked through a lot. I stopped avoiding and denying. I engaged my heart.... It wasn't easy. Hurt a lot. But anything worth something has its price, right?

Then my mom got cancer. Words cannot express the pain -- not of my own loss, but of the unspeakable hurt she endured knowing she was going to die.

I mustered up all I'd amassed emotionally, did what I could to help carry her burden. Every night, whether she was in the hospital or in the room at the top of the stairs in my brother's house that my selfless sister-in-law lovingly arranged for her, I tucked Regina in. We'd talk about all kinds of things -- inane banter about the latest celebrity gossip, sometimes a little family gossip (when no one else was around) -- yet, more often, about the things that mattered most to each of us.

Opening up like never before, I wrapped my love around her pain.

I couldn't have known it at the time, but losing my mom undid a lot of the work I'd done to that point. Almost imperceptibly, I began slipping back. Without even realizing it, my sorrow began to occupy a place below the level of my awareness -- the troll under the bridge. I became anxious, skeptical, doubtful, afraid. I stopped going to church, or even talking to God.

Before long, the orderliness of my life had turned into a pile of shoe boxes stuffed with receipts in the corner of the closet. My credit was shot -- and, with it, my faith.

You can't live a full life without getting knocked around a bit. What distinguishes us from one another is how we cope.

Now and then my heart ventured out a bit. It would find something good and wholesome, sweet and yummy. Then it would dash back inside.

In a world where change is all that's constant, I didn't know how to put my pain to rest. I tried burying it -- which, of course, is the worst thing you can do: It will only drop in at precisely the worst moment, making you doubt when you should trust, and fear when you should risk.

If someone somehow outran the guard dogs, swam the moat and climbed the razor wire to find their way in, I'd simply push them away. Disengage. Lie. Cheat.

I'd turned the wrapping inside out, and the pain smothered me like a tattered blanket.

You can't simply crawl under the hood and fix it -- we're not made that way. It's another form of denial and detachment: turning yourself into an object you can "work on." Then there's this exquisite piece of advice:

Y'know why people drown? Cause they fight to stay above the water. If you just let go, you float.

Clever. Poignant. True. But, in the end, it's all merely words -- unless something changes the way you think about them.

My shot came somewhat in storybook style. It was sweet but subdued.

Christmas was approaching -- and, with it, a holiday ritual: I began to brace myself for sorrow's annual visit, where it would remind me of childhood holidays past, when the drunk either didn't come home or walked in the door after 3 a.m., smashed, empty-handed; when the priest from the nearby church brought my brother and I a box of hand-me-down toys; when my mom hugged us both a little tighter, as if to say, "This is the best I can do."

This time, a week before Christmas a few years back, I went into Manhattan. Because of the holiday, I left my car on the Jersey side and hopped a shuttle. Later that day, I took a bus back home.

What I hadn't realized was that it would head straight through the heart of my childhood, along the main streets of a neighborhood I deliberately had avoided for decades.

There was my grammar school, Washington #5, in Union City.

Across the street was St. Augustine's, where I received First Communion.

And, finally, there was our old apartment building. We lived on the first floor, in the back, which made it relatively easy to get out when there was a fire (although my mom sprained her ankle once after letting me down, handing over my brother and then jumping).

Oh, boy.

A funny thing happened on my way to the pity party, though.

As the bus crawled up the avenue, I remembered sitting on the piano stool next to my kindergarten teacher, while everyone sang "Happy Birthday" -- to me. I could feel the sense of awe I had walking up the aisle for communion. I could myself onstage, playing an elf in the school Christmas play -- with a singing role, no less.

I remembered going to the World's Fair in first grade and returning able to spell the names of all the primary dinosaurs correctly. I could see the angelic face of Darlene Martin (at 6 years old, my first "girlfriend"). And I remembered the kids from my multi-ethnic neighborhood, all knitted together in what then, in the early 60s, was the social quilt of the times.

As I looked out the window of the bus at my past, that long-since-gone quilt wrapped itself around me. It reminded me of everything that was good about being a boy.

I've a boy of my own now. He's nearly three and truly a revelation -- clever and funny and loving. To him, living with his mom in Queens and visiting his dad in NJ is perfectly normal. And y'know what? It is.

Even better is the true love of my life, a wife I never would have believed could exist, a woman who makes me want to be a better man each and every day, a friend and lover who wraps me in her love when the night gets a bit too dark.

Both of them are relatively new in my life (I'm pushing 52 already), yet each gets all of my heart -- fully, unconditionally, unafraid. And I get the same in return.

Sure, I still miss my mom (God, do I ever). But I suspect she'd have been as proud, and thankful, as I am myself.

Some Christmas gifts don't need wrapping.