334/365 More Christmas Past

On my birthday, 1983, the Marine barracks in Beirut were bombed. My uncle, and godfather, Patrick, was supposed to be there--sort of the story of his life, actually--but drew the short straw and was sent to Honduras instead, out of contact for months. My family had no idea whether he was in Beirut or sitting pretty in San Diego, or what. After it was sifted out that he was alive, not in Beirut, and not somewhere he could talk about, everyone halfway relaxed.

That Christmas, I remember hovering around the big oak kitchen table at my grandmother's house, hearing but not understanding most of the stressed conversation. When it was time for dinner, my grandmother said grace. My grandmother, Penny, is a liturgically liberal charismatic Catholic, and she held her arms open and palms raised like a priest in the Eucharistic Prayer. She thanked God for those gathered--seven of her eight children, all her grandchildren but two, her siblings, their families--and prayed for "those who could not be with us here tonight." Meaning Patrick and his daughters. She then promptly burst into tears and ran from the room.

This was upsetting when I was 9. But looking around the tight little kitchen, nobody was much impressed by her performance. Patrick had always been her favorite. The siblings exchanged annoyed glances, the in-laws passed the plates around. When my grandmother came back in, calmer after the traditional Christmas phone call from officers overseas, she had me sit on her lap and held me too close while I alternated between resistance and resignation.