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Page 1 of 2  I couldn’t help but tune into Ralph’s telephone conversation as his baritone voice spilled over the cubicle wall. His use of the words “cancer” and “Christmas” close together pricked my ears.
“Yeah, we’re carpooling with my dad to Mississippi this Christmas,” Ralph told the person on the other end of the line. “He loves the grandkids, and he’ll really enjoy them since Momma died of cancer.” This past June, Ralph’s 80-year-old mother succumbed to lung cancer that had spread to her spine and ribs. She had never smoked or been around anybody who puffed away. Turns out, Ralph’s mother lived in south Texas, where ranchers use all kinds of pesticides to murder all kinds of diseases. Some of those pesticides wind up in the air, only to get sucked into human lungs like those of Ralph’s mother.
“It’s environmental, no doubt in my mind,” Ralph told me, after he hung up and I admitted I couldn’t help but overhear him. I told him about the medical researcher in Dallas who blamed her lung cancer on the city’s notorious air pollution just before her own death.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Ralph replied. “You go to a cancer clinic, and it’s full of people. Something must be going on.” All alone Whatever the cause of her death, Ralph’s father is all alone these holidays, after 58 Christmases spent with his sweetheart. And I hear there is no greater pain than the pain that strikes when your sweetheart dies. “Yeah, he’s really hurting now,” Ralph said. “This is the first Christmas in 58 years he’s getting the Christmas cards out by himself. He’s really lost.” Right now, I’m thinking about all the people who lost their sweethearts, or other loved ones, to cancer this year. This will be the hardest holiday of all. I feel their pain. Christmas 2005 was the first one without my mother, who always worked her fanny off to ensure the Smith family had a great holiday. She decorated the house to the nines, decorated the tree, slaved over a hot stove to fix a sumptuous turkey, and topped it off with her famous dressing that nobody could beat. Now, that's all gone. She didn't die of cancer, but that's beside the point. The point is I know what people who have lost a loved one are enduring right now. For their sakes, I hope they spend the holidays with family and friends, and not by themselves. Feeling the walls closing in around you is definitely a terrible way to spend Christmas. Mostly, I wonder if people will sense the grief and take the initiative to invite the new widow or widower to spend the holidays with them. What a great holiday present, a gift almost as good as offering your stable and manger to a poor carpenter, his very pregnant wife—and their soon-to-be son.
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