A Christmas Road Trip

Last Christmas was different: challenging, dark, surprising and magical, which gave it the feel of a fairy-tale, but it didn't start that way. 


Instead, it started with my mother's stroke. I had seen her several days before Christmas and celebrated the holidays with a mofongo and shrimp dinner (smashed green plantains with olive oil and meat of your choice) and exchange of gifts in NYC, where she lives (I'm accustomed to celebrating holidays in non-linear fashion with close family who live faraway, so I go to them instead.  Anyway, my mother hates to leave her home, so I got to her instead).   When I got the call from the hospital, a day after Christmas day, I was in Florida and immediately decided to drive the children back to see her.


But before my mother's stroke, there had been other turmoil:  my best friend, whose house I was staying at, was in the throes of a deep depression after learning she had to have surgery for precancerous cells in her uterus. She hadn't cleaned her house in over six months and was barely able to leave her room, if only to go to work. On Christmas Eve, my daughter and I cleaned her bathroom, vaccumed her rug, washed her clothes, scoured her kitchen, which made her smile and gave her sense of newfound relief.  She called us life-savers and Christmas angels, and for the first time, I understood what it meant to truly give on Christmas. Then on Christmas day, after my children spent the morning with their father, we cooked an impromptu Chili dinner with white rice, salad, chips, and salsa at my friend's house. Her son, my kids, and their neighborhood friends, the ones they grew up with, came over. We had 15 people sitting and standing around the dinner table, all eating, laughing, and recalling memories in what was my and theirs most impromptu, non-traditional Christmas dinner ever. It was starting to feel like this was not only a unique experience, but the way Christmas should be. It sure beat shopping at the mall for last-minute gifts or opening tons of presents I would soon forget - like I had done most of my other holidays.


Then the bad news started rolling in: first my friend's ex-husband called to say the Labrador they once shared had died.  Then the hospital called with news of my mother's stroke. I didn't sleep and I woke the children to tell them to get their bags ready; we would be on the road the next day.


The idea of a road trip came after I learned, the following day, my mother would be fine; she had a mini-stroke with no long-term effects.  Anyway, I was exhausted after driving 30 plus hours from Maine to New York and then to Florida; I didn't know if I had it in me to drive straight-through the South and back up North.  Furthermore, I had not seen my children in a year (my son was college and my 17-year-old daughter lived with her father in Miami), so I decided that in the two-day trip back to New York City we would bond by going on a road trip.


In North Carolina, we ate slow-cooked barbecue chicken and pork at a restaurant that prided itself on a 12-hour-slow-cook method on their famous grills outside. In North Carolina, we stopped at the Ava Gardner museum and ogled over her Hollywood dresses and watched a short documentary on her fascinating life.  In Georgia, we walked around the famed Bonaventure cemetery with its beautiful vintage statuary.  In Virginia, we stopped at a Civil War battle field along the James River and took pictures on its canons.  In Philadelphia, we did a midnight run of the two famed Philly cheese steak sandwich stands, and shared our meal on a bench outside on a cold winter night.


When we arrived in NYC two days later, we went straight to the hospital. My mother was fine and happy to see us.


Even today, my children marvel at that amazing Christmas.  I learned something about that holiday:  Don't plan too much, control too much, expect too much or be so hard-wired about traditions. Go with the flow and there will always be magic, especially during Christmas.


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