This is what my grandmother told me

The fire roared in the fireplace, Bing Crosby crooned White Christmas on the stereo from the other room, and we all sipped our warmed eggnog. Mom sat in her usual chair, wearing her usual red and green floor-length skirt. Dad sat across from her, his legs crossed as they were every year at this time, smoking a pipe. Gary and Jeff book-ended our grandmother, dressed in a green and red plaid suit with a white blouse, her hair freshly rinsed with its blue-gray tint. I sat on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, my back warmed by the fire behind me.

Granny tore the gold and silver wrapping paper and opened the box. She opened her mouth, put her head back, and burst into laughter, exposing a long row of silver-laced dentures. The rest looked at me, as if to say, what did you get her for Christmas?

My grandmother lifted the object out of the box. “A wooden rhinoceros,” she said, tears of laughter running down her face. “Who’d have ever thought of such a gift, but for my little Jimmy?”

All at once, I felt five years old again. Little Jimmy, indeed. How could she? I was fifteen years old and already six inches taller than she was.

“Oh, dear,” she said, settling down a little bit and wiping the tears from her eyes, but still laughing. “It’s the most darling gift anyone’s ever given me. Thank you, sweetheart.”

Funny, how memories stay with you over the years. I remember that moment, thirty-five years ago, as if it were yesterday, as if my grandmother were still alive, rather than gone thirty years now, as if time had stopped and held us in its arms. And yet, I go back to that moment, wishing I could change what followed –

“All right, everyone,” my mother said a little later that morning. “Let’s get ready to go visit your grandfather.”

“Will he remember our names this time, Mom?” my brother asked.

“Quiet, Jeff,” Mom said. “Not in front of your grandmother. It’s bad enough as it is.”

“Nonsense,” Granny said. “There’s nothing bad about visiting your grandfather.”