Tradition
31 Dec 2018Today’s prompt: “Tell a complete stranger about a beloved family tradition.”
“I guess it would have started back in 1997. Aunt Harriet slipped on an icy patch and cracked her head open on a wrought-iron fence. Bled out before the ambulance arrived.”
“Oh, my,” June says. June seems to be a nice lady. She was looking forward to Midnight Mass, a little eggnog, and carolers showing up on her doorstep. And then she struck up a conversation with you at the bus stop.
“The tradition continued next year with Grandma Emily. That was the year we had the big blizzard. It took out power to Grandma Emily’s house for hours. She must have been convinced it wasn’t coming back on. Her garage door was open, her driver’s side door was open, and her driveway was about half-shoveled. We think she started shoveling the walk and either gave up – maybe none of her neighbors had plowed the road yet by then either – or thought to try starting her car before she went any further, and the engine didn’t turn over. Whatever happened, she must have decided to start walking. It was a long way to town from her house. They found her body in a snow bank. She literally froze to death.”
“That – that’s just awful,” June says.
“Seems like there was one a year, every year after that, right around the holidays. Except for, I think 2003? Somewhere around there. When Uncle Bill and Aunt Connie’s car skidded on their way to a holiday party and hit a tree. Bill made it, but Connie and their daughter Nicole didn’t. So there were two that year.”
“Oh no,” June says. “How’s Bill doing now?”
“Oh, he died a few years later. Fell off the roof while he was hanging Christmas lights. I don’t think anyone was surprised. We all told him he shouldn’t be getting on the ladder for that anymore, especially not while none of us were around.” You shake your head, and smile a melancholy kind of smile. “He was always a stubborn old coot.”
“My God. It must be so hard around the holidays for you and your family. Everyone’s lost so many loved ones. Everyone must be miserable when your family gets together.”
“Well, that’s not really an issue this year.”
“Oh, no family gathering this year?”
“No. Well. It’s just that I’m the last one left.”
“Oh my God I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Do you – would you like to join my family for Christmas?”
“That’s nice of you to offer, June, but I already have plans,” you say. It’s cold, and you fidget with your scarf. You must have lifted your arms enough to raise your coat above the muzzle of the pistol at your hip. June notices.
“You don’t have to go through with it,” she says. “You’ve obviously been through so much, more than anybody should have to. But there are people who can help you. There’s the suicide hotline, there’s therapists, there’s – please don’t do this. You don’t have to do this.”
“June,” you say, standing up from the bus stop bench, “I’m sure there’s tons of people out there who want to help me out, and you could all come up with reasons for me to live. But if you think I don’t have to do this,” you say, starting towards the woods, “then you don’t know shit about tradition.”
[My goal with these stories is to entertain, maybe to creep out my readers a little. But depression is a real struggle for many people and I don’t want to just breeze past that. If you’re reading this and have been contemplating suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.]