A personal, historical vignette

By Cainnech Ó Sullibhain

A few days ago on a Saturday afternoon, I was sitting on a couch in a shopping centre watching people busy doing their Christmas shopping. They all seemed to be in a hurry, rushing around looking for deals in the pre-festive air of Christmas. Every shop was lit up with glitzy decorations in order to attract people. There I sat waiting with the hope that I could meet the demo lady that came by every so often. But it turned out that she was not coming, and would possibly be in the next day.

There I sat musing, and while I looked at the hustle and bustle of the crowd, I began to think of a very special Christmas 60 years ago. This Christmas has been etched in my memory and somehow, it will stay there till I die. It was to me, a 15-year old boy, something of what we dream about, and it brings love, caring, family and friends.

It was a Christmas when having friends and family around me meant joy and happiness. I did not get a gift that Christmas, but I got the best gift of all, I got a feeling of love, caring and friendship greater than I had encountered anytime in my life before. These things come as a special gift because of their circumstances.

The Union Flag of Great Britain had been hauled down in this colony a few months before and we were now in a transit camp awaiting transportation home to England. The transit camp commandant, a Major Boag, had requested my mother to make up a choir and sing the Christmas carols and hymns at the midnight mass that was being held in the barracks. The priest was a Dutchman, Fr. Priscus by name and he came specifically for this event; it was to be the last event of that nature in the transit camp. My mother played the piano and I too sang in the small choir along with a Sgt. Foxy Foxwell and a few other soldiers. We were invited by Major Boag to his quarters to celebrate Christmas. We all had a good time, because we had each others’ company. It was the last REAL Christmas that I recall, having received nothing, yet it was the happiest Christmas because warmth and love was in the air — I along with another boy, George Watts, his sister Beulah, and there was Dickie Sheridan and his sister Daphne. Besides my mother and father my sisters Yvonne and Paulette and my brothers Lawrence and Martin were also present. When time came to retire that night, we all had misgivings on what the future would bring us, because we would no longer have the kind of life that we once knew.

While back at the mall I was musing and thinking about Christmas, awaiting the demo lady to come, a thought came to mind: How Christmas has changed so drastically from 1947, and where was the love and caring that came with the Christmases of the past? Here was a commercial enterprise, with the garishness of a circus, without any meaning being passed off as Christmas. What had happened to the Christmas that we knew? It was not the Grinch that had stolen Christmas from us, but businesses that had taken it over and made it a hoax.

I recall, also going to So. Burlington, Vermont one Christmas and seeing the kind of Christmas that I once knew as a boy. It was filled with love and caring; the people may not have had much, but their hearts were overfilled with the joy that came with this occasion. Each one’s home was lit up in a festive way, not garish or glaring. They oozed love and joy that came with Christmas.

That Christmas was going to be one that I could not blot out of my memory, because while there was love and joy in the air, sadness was to overtake all this. I did not know that my mother had a terminal illness and she never let on either. I was soon to feel this sadness as the days went on. My mother pretended that everything was alright, but that was a façade, because her illness was to suddenly get worse. Within the next few months, my mother would die of peritonitis after an operation and here was I, a 15-year old, wondering what was going to happen next? A few days before my mother died, my mother called me to her bedside to tell me something. My mother and I had never really got on and I felt a bit aloof, but that day things seemed different. She said to me, “Son, I never treated you properly, but I will tell you this, that you will one day be the greatest of my sons!” I never understood what she was actually trying to tell me, how could I a 15-year old understand her message. It dawned on me years later that she had a vision and she was trying very hard to convey that vision to me. My mother soon passed away a few days later and while she was given a military funeral, it was a time of great sadness for me and our family.

Today, I would like people to think over the real meaning of Christmas, and start counting their blessings, not by what they will receive under the Christmas tree, but what they will receive in love and caring from their family and friends; be thankful not for the gifts, but for all the things that they take for granted, and which have more meaning than they can ever understand. Keep love and caring as the real gifts of Christmas and know why you are celebrating this feast, of the Child in Swaddling Clothes in Bethlehem of Judea. Put back that feeling of love, contentment, and caring and, above all, fill your heart with the joy that is so infectious that it will light the way as you walk carrying this message of love and peace on earth.

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Related: Society, Christianity, History

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