An unexpected Christmas gift

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When we were growing up together, I often tried to show him the world through my eyes."It's a fake tree," I said, the year our mother lost her mind and decided real trees were trouble. "It's silver like tin foil. And it looks like a TV antenna covered with Brillo Pads.""Let me feel it," Joe said.He held out his hand the way he did when he wanted to "see" something -- with his palm wide open and his fingers spread like the starfish I found at Myrtle Beach that my mother wouldn't let me bring home in the car.I took his wrist and guided his arm to let him pat the tree's spindly limbs. When he'd seen enough, he put his hand to his nose and sniffed it."That's the ugliest tree I ever saw," he said, finally. "But I like the way it smells."My brother and I haven't gotten to spend a Christmas together since we grew old enough to notice that Santa looked a lot like Uncle Harry.After college, I moved off to California. Joe learned to read Braille at South Carolina's school for the blind, then got an apartment to live on his own. Our mother was not pleased with either of us, though we assured her we would survive.But surviving is not the same as sharing Christmas -- getting frostbit in the snow; singing carols off-key around a fake tree; lying awake listening for Uncle Harry's reindeer.I can miss my brother any day but I miss him differently at Christmas. He tells me not to worry. Worry is what sisters do.Mostly, I worry that he's lost too many pieces -- pieces of himself that belonged to people he loved. Our mother died years ago. He still clouds up at her memory. He lost his wife, the love of his life, two years ago to cancer. And last January, we lost our stepfather, who was also Joe's best friend.How many pieces can you lose and still feel whole?"Hey, sister," he says when I call, "good to hear your voice!"I can hear his radio."Am I interrupting a game?""No, no," he says, "it's not a game. Just a sports talk show.""You wouldn't talk to me if Clemson were playing," I say.He laughs, but it's the truth.We spend the next 20 minutes catching up. He's singing in the church choir for the Christmas service, he says, and I mention that they won't need a lot of voices, as his is louder than God and all his angels.Some students from Wofford College were kind enough, he says, to bring him a Christmas basket filled with goodies. He'll keep what he likes and give the rest to friends. If I'm lucky, he might let me have a bar of soap.He will spend Christmas with our sister and her family and eat them out of house and home."It won't be the same this year without Daddy," he says. "I'll miss him for sure, like I miss my mother and my wife. But I'm just glad to be alive.""So am I," I say. So am I.And then he happens to mention his "new friend.""I met her on the bus," he says. She's really nice. We talk on the phone an awful lot.""Do you ever talk to her when Clemson's playing?" I say.He laughs, and ducks the question. "It's nothing serious yet," he says. "It's just nice to have somebody to talk to.""What do you mean YET?""Huh? Well, sister, you never know what'll happen. I gotta go. I'll call you on Christmas.""You'd better," I say. Then I hang up the phone, laughing and singing his words like the Hallelujah Chorus, "nice to have somebody to talk to."Sometimes when you least expect it, Christmas shows up early like a long lost love and wraps you up whole in its arms.(Sharon Randall can be contacted at PO. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89052 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net)