Oh, Christmas Tree

We went to get a Christmas tree today, just my son and me. It was a last minute decision after running a quick errand. The tent was there and it seemed the logical thing to do. His sister was at home, but we didn’t think she would mind if we grabbed a quick Fraser Fir.

Upon entering the tent at our local home improvement store, we were immediately approached by a guy working who offered to assist us. He was young-ish, maybe mid to late twenties. Rugged and dark, he seemed out of place in the tropics. He definitely looked more the part of a lumberjack. I told him I wanted a tree that was short and stout, full-bodied. He pulled a fresh tree off the truck and unwound it from its orange plastic webbing.

My son seemed a little hesitant, as the tree was unveiled. “I don’t know, mom, “ he said, scrutinizing the tree. “Do you like it?”

“It’s fine,” I told him weakly. I wasn’t really convinced, either. It really wasn’t as full as what I had hoped for. I had entered that tent with a different vision. When I thought of the tree in my living room, this the first year I would have to drag it in the house alone and decorate it without a partner, I wanted something really alive and jubilant, as if to distract the kids from the sorrow that filled the house, exaggerated even more during the holidays. In their father’s absence this year, I at least wanted to have festive beauty and perhaps some new traditions, as if to make up for the lack of togetherness.

“That works,” I told Paul Bunyan, nodding at the tree. He took the fir over to trim it and clean it up. I was already having anxiety about the stand, and voiced this concern. I was told I could have brought the stand with me and he would have happily secured the base for me.  I was disappointed I didn’t think to do this to begin with.

We went inside the main store to pay. A man checking out at the register across from us yelled over to me, “You came in and grabbed a tree as quickly as we did. You were in and out of there.”

“Yes, well, I am usually a woman who knows what I want,” I responded to him, still not completely convinced of my purchase, but mentally trying to convince myself everything was going to be okay. I was already having buyer’s remorse, thinking of the pathetic top of our tree, the way it feathered out into nothing and was a little crooked where the star should stand. It seemed a little sad to me. Sparse. Broken.

Back to the lot the boy and I went and Mountain Man had our Charlie Brown tree trimmed and leveled off at the bottom. “Will that work for your stand? Do you need more trimmed off?” It took everything in me to keep a straight face. Clearly, this man didn’t know he was talking to someone who had never wrestled a tree stand before. Someone had always done it for me.

“I guess we will find out, “ I laughed nervously, with increasing anxiety about getting this tree to stand upright on its own. Solo. This was supposed to be the beginning of Christmas joy, but I was dreading the initial display of symbolic noel. I just didn’t know if I could pull it off. Alone.

Once home and more than ninety minutes later, the sad little tree was still not stable in her stand. She wanted to be content, but she leaned this way and that, unable to find her footing no matter how I adjusted the screws. Her trunk was becoming seemingly increasingly agitated by the adjustments, scarred now from repeated attempts to set her straight and make it right. I finally walked away from the operation to tend to kids and dinner and a much-needed run, but I promised the little people we would decorate it tonight. The house was fragrant with lovely pine as we left the house to lose ourselves in other obligations.

Hours later and bedtime looming dangerously in the future, I willed myself back to the tree. Several strings of lights that wouldn’t illuminate called for a detour to Target and brought new clear bulbs and more red ornaments to adorn the tree, a tree I still wasn’t sold on. I couldn’t imagine any number of beautiful ornaments disguising its unhappy appearance, but I was committed. I had chosen it, signed my name on the line. I didn’t want to disappoint the kids. I had to make it work.

It still wasn’t stable in the stand, much as I tinkered and thumped at the trunk. After two near misses and a boy joking “Timber!” one too many times, I reluctantly gave in and texted their father.

“Will you please come help me with the tree stand?”

His response was immediate, “Sure. On my way.”

I hated myself for reaching out to him. Maybe it was an ego thing and I didn’t want to throw in the towel or maybe I felt like I was taking advantage of him, but I did not want to ask for his help. I had wanted to get that tree up and lit all by myself in an act of independence this first year. In an act of courage (or defiance, not sure which), I wanted to set a brave example for the kids. I wanted them to see that life can go on and it can continue—maybe not as we knew it before, but still full of promise and hope and beauty. I didn’t want to buckle and call on their father.

He arrived in less than ten minutes, and I was ever grateful to see him.

We worked together, he and I, but I was becoming increasingly frustrated. Thirty minutes of adjusting the tree, it seemed he had the same opinion I did. “You know, I think that’s a good as it’s going to get. I think it will be okay, it’s just not totally stable.”

I collapsed on the bench near the tree and began to whimper. “But that is not good enough for me. What if it falls and the ornaments break? What if the dog knocks it over? What if it hurts a child?”

In an act of diffusing the situation, my son came over and offered his father the stocking that read his name, the one I made for him our first year married, “Dad, do you want to take your stocking to your house?” My lower lip began to quiver and I suddenly felt numb.

“Sure, buddy. Thanks.”

And this is where my heart really began to understand the gravity of the situation. I felt as empty as that hollow sock that hung lifeless in my soon-to-be-ex-husband’s hand. I opened my mouth to protest, wanting to make it all go away and say that his dad could, of course, leave his stocking with the other three for the sake of cohesiveness, but I stopped. It wasn’t going to work that way. They no longer belonged together. As much as I wanted four stockings hanging from a fireplace, it seemed the obvious choice to offer Marc his stocking to take to his house, painful as it was.

“Why don’t I take this tree and go run out and get you a new one? You can start over with a new one?” He said to me. My heart almost stopped beating with the heavy sadness that filled it. Here, a man I could no longer envision a future with was offering to take the lopsided and defunct tree and go get me another one to replace it. He was willing to assume the sad and sickly tree. I wanted to evaporate into the thin air that I couldn’t seem to pass over my lungs in that moment. Most certainly, I must be The Grinch who had stolen all of the Christmas cheer.

“No, that’s okay. You don’t have to get me a new one. I’ll figure it out tomorrow,” I said.

And then the voice of reason came from my twelve-year-old, “I think everyone is tired and we should just hang it all up for the night.” She was right and we all agreed. But her father still insisted on taking the problematic tree away, so he dragged it to his car and loaded it up, needles littering the living room as they went.

And from the doorway of my house, I watched him load the tree I couldn’t make work and drive away. The needles it left behind felt like broken pieces of my heart as I swept them out the door, hoping that somehow if I cleared them outside, so, too, would the ache in my heart blow away.

I shuffled the kids off to bed and sent him a text.

 “Thank you for taking the tree. I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it work.”

And I meant it—for the tree and so much more.