Two days before Christmas.
I remember this day more than any other--even more than Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. So, what's so special about Christmas Eve Eve? It's probably the anticipation of being picked up by my dad on Christmas Eve. My brother and I would spend two or three times per year with our father, each time was very special, going to Downtown Chicago on the IC (Illinois Central Railroad). The train was a commuter rail line to the City then rather than a train the went from Chicago and all the way down through down State, Illinois, then on to Memphis, TN, Jackson, MS, and New Orleans. The City of New Orleans.
Trains meant freedom. For generations of Black people and this one Black boy from Robbins, Illinois. Riding on a train was like the holiday that we loved so well; Christmas. Traveling from Robbins via Blue Island to the Randolph Street station, which were in the very bowels of City, underground out of the elements. It could be snowing like crazy, or sleeting, but we were safe--with our Dad.
My father died six days before the events of September 11, 2001. It was like my own personal grief was swallowed whole by what the nation was experiencing at the time, sending me reeling off of my own tracks, as it were.
But back in the late Sixties, bracing the stiff rain, sleet, and wind of Chicago's brutal winter to hang out with our father is still the highlight of my life.
What was special about that time? There were pinball machines and baseball machines and donuts and places where you could actually make a record. My brother, dad, and I jammed into a photo booth-sized cubicle making our rendition of "White Christmas." To me, my father sounded exactly like Bing Crosby, how deep he could make his voice.
Racing home to show my mother was probably the biggest letdown, that's when we would realize that they were never, ever going to get back together. I have to admit, I don't remember a time when they were together, but I had their wedding pictures staring at us over at my "Aint" Bert's house, airbrushed to perfection to emphasize their diminutive size and airbrushed eyebrows and red, red lips; they both looked liked they had on lipstick. I loved that picture. How beautiful they were. They were my hope for the future. They were what I remembered about Christmas.
Although my mother and father went on to marry other people. Again, hurtfully so for mom, and pretty happily so for my father, they were what I secretly wished for at Christmas. If they could only get back together, then all would be solved.
So these days, I listen to the candidates talk about what constitutes a married couple, what constitutes love, a household, a family. My mind goes back to that train station underneath the City of Chicago, and I remember those moments that made me unequivocally and irrevocably me. Making "White Christmas" and hoping for a reunion that wold never come. No one was more heartbroken than me; it was like waiting and waiting for Jesus to arrive. Dying waiting for "The Christ." The One who would save us all.
"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. Just like the ones I used to know.
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