The Star

My wife has been finishing up her indoor Christmas decoration. Next to the family room fire place, she placed a miniature Christmas tree and on top of the tree she placed a rather large gold-metal star with a blue light. That star is sixty-five years old. I recall when my Dad put it on top of our family tree at 5401 Rosemont Avenue Washington Park (East St. Louis). I was eleven years old.

Last night, I turned off all the lights in the family room except the blue bulb on that old star. I put Ray Charles' 'Spirit of Christmas' CD in the player and stared at that star while listening to Ray. A flood of memories rushed through this aging brain. I recalled the early days when Mammy and Grandpa E.V. Bennett's home was the Christmas Eve setting. I hung around E.V. because he was always near Mammy's homemade custard.

I remember getting a 'used' RoadMaster bike at age seven. I was ecstatic. Before we moved to Rosemont there was the Christmas times on Hallows Avenue where brother Tom and I waited for Santa.

Many years later my parents had moved to Collinsville where Dad regaled in decorating the outside of his large (corner lot home) especially the outside winding staircase. If one of those light bulbs burned out, he was on it like stink on a Skunk. One thing for certain, no matter where Gerry and I lived, no matter the winter weather, we knew we had to be at Mom and Dad's house Christmas Eve.

The last Christmas with a parent was with my mother at Meridian Village Home in Glen Carbon. That was three years ago. I remember it like yesterday. My children and many of the grandkids crowded into her small living quarters to shower her with love and gifts. She died a few weeks later days shy of Christmas.

That old 'Star' always brings back precious memories and a flood of tears.