On the St. Joseph: Part 1

February 17th 2023

Three days after Christmas in 1986, my father spent the early morning hours tearing off the bulbs, tinsel and various trinkets that adorned the Christmas tree and tossing them into boxes. We had cut the tree on Flowerfield not three weeks prior and although my stepmother was set on keeping the tree up through New Years, they compromised. 

He dragged the pine through the living room, into the kitchen and down the stairs into the basement, where it joined those from the previous two years. He laid them on a bed of chicken wire, old scraps of screen doors and tattered rope from the barn. Numerous bugs spun webs, built nests and settled down in the dried, brittle branches. When it was decided that the third tree was sufficient, the ropes were fastened tightly, pulling the layers of wire and screen into a cocoon-like form around the pines, and a mix of brown and green needles sprung outward through the openings. It sat overnight. 

A dense fog settled the next morning, and the sunrise felt more distant than usual. I watched from the windows as my father shuffled through snow drifts, tugging behind him the notable formation he had created. The trail thinned as the distance between our home and my father grew greater. Soon, I could hardly make out a dark spot in the fog where he stood. For a few moments, it dissipated and became invisible.

The air around me grew silent and I became so aware of my own breath that I felt its warmth seep from my nostrils and onto my lips. With each breath, a small white cloud formed on the glass before me, and as I watched it come and go, my father found his way back into my view. I focused on him.

He drudged back across the ice and through the trench the trees had dug behind him. Soon his boots clunked their way up the stairs, onto the back deck and the door creaked open.

“You see that, kiddo? Now, we wait.” His voice was proud with anticipation and filled the room. A smile broke out across my face. Now, we wait.