The Sign

It’s been nearly seven years and three laptop computers since we started our weekly talks. The Dell hit the dust quickly, though it was already several years old. The refurbished Mac-Book Pro was amazing, until it wasn’t. Now I write to you on last year’s Black Friday Walmart special – the rose gold MacBook Air. It is oftentimes difficult to pick a topic. Occasionally, I fear I am repeating myself. Columnist 101 – start a spreadsheet of topics on day one. Sadly, I did not. We are so very close to Christmas. I have something weighing on my heart. Despite my concern that we’ve conversed about this already, I’m going to retell you a tale. Just nod like you’re hearing it for the first time, ok? That’s what I make my adult children do on my 4th rendition of the same song and dance. They roll their eyes. Feel free to do the same.

Classic stories get told and retold, passed down through generations as each puts their own spin on the details. Some even get made into movies. We all have our preferred groups. I’m a Christmas Carol girly. Also, I abhor today’s flagrant use of the word girly, but my effort to be current overrules me. Anywho, Dickens reigns supreme for me, provided we watch the original from 1938 starring Reginald Owen. I’ll have none of this Muppets nonsense. I also love It’s a Wonderful Life. I swoon over the scene in Meet Me in St. Louis where Judy Garland sings Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. My kids swear that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. I refuse. They also like Christmas Vacation and Home Alone, both choices I can stand behind. Regardless which movie camp you pick, there’s always room for another entry, yes? Today I give you a new movie I directed (in my head) about heavenly signs, grief at Christmas, and a really ugly Christmas tree.

It was 2011. To say the three years prior were bad is to say Grease 2 didn’t win any awards: the understatement of the century. Daughter – gone. Right breast – gone. Home – gone. Car – gone. Job – gone. Still, we were clawing our way to a morphed sense of normal. I had a new job with an old employer. I flew out each Monday and flew home each Friday. Honestly, it was a saving grace for my marriage. The sense of purpose it provided and the break it gave my husband from his role as the 24/7 comforter gave him time to relax and me a chance to stand on my own again. One snowy February Friday in Chicago, however, I found my flight cancelled. I would be staying in the windy city until Monday morning. That is how I found myself, three days later, walking in the front door of our rental home with the terra cotta tile floors, bedraggled, wearing clothes that could’ve been cleaner, and lugging my Swiss Army suitcase up a flight of stairs. There’s no mistaking the sound of a Christmas ornament rolling across Saltillo tiles, even if your back is turned.

I whipped around and gave the whirring, rolling, marbly sound my full attention. My breath caught. I think I sat down on the 3rd or 4th step, though that may be my cinematic brain creating an ornament meet cute. I knew exactly what I was seeing, but felt reality being altered. I don’t think you’re going to believe it either. But first, we gotta go back to 2006. Enter the ghost of Christmas past.

Things that were popular in the early aughts include, but are not limited to, hot pink and zebra print, hot pink and leopard print, midriff baring tight shirts worn over fifteen layers of camisole tops, each a different color, concealer as lipstick, Maybelline Dream Mousse foundation in a shade that is too dark, a big hump for your bangs, and boas. Everything was trimmed in boas. That’s how I presented the idea to my 14-yearold daughter that November. “What if we did the entire tree….IN BLACK! We could paint some old ornaments black, use black ribbons tied into bows, and, OH WAIT! We could use black boas as garland!” A few weeks and lots of black craft paint later, we stepped back from our creation and realized we had made the ugliest tree known to modern civilization. I hated it. My daughter tried to reassure me that it probably just needed to grow on us. We called it the Blessed Mother of Perpetual Grief because it reminded us of the elderly catholic ladies that attended mass in all black with their little heads covered in black lace. We both agreed it was a “never again” moment. The only saving grace was the monogrammed black ornaments I made for each of the children. Those were cute. Even so, on December 26, 2006, every single black accoutrement was tossed into the trash with a chuckle and a look of good riddance. Ghost of Christmas past but slightly more into the future, take us now to the year of our Lord 2011.

I stood up on the step where I’d collapsed, abandoning my large rolling suitcase. I walked toward the round object that had rolled, as if lightly tossed, 20 feet across the tile floors coming to rest in the center of the room. I picked up the black orb with its gold lacey top, the green tree hanger still attached. There it was in my own handwriting, my late daughter’s monogram, thrown into the trash years before her passing: CNZ, Chynna Nicole Zmolik.

This is where my directorial debut ends. The best screenwriters understand the necessity of the audience drawing their own conclusions. Just ask Stephen King regarding the end of The Shining. But, seeing as how I was also a main character in this Christmas masterpiece movie, I can offer you my interpretation. Heaven often sends us little signs that our beloveds are doing well. Perhaps it’s a sign that they want us to shore our shoulders and lift our chins. To this day, it isn’t Christmas until I hang the CNZ ornament. It reminds me that she was amazing. It reminds me that, even if she could, she would never come back. It reminds me of miracles. Merry Christmas.