The first of many such Christmas cards

Dear Scott and Mary Bailey,

Thank you very much for your Christmas card to my mom…

***

“Daniel?”

“Yeah?” I grumble, annoyed as my mom enters my room.

“I got a card,” she says, placing a Christmas card onto my desk. “Do you know who this is?”

I sigh. I’m not doing anything important—that’s not the point—it’s that I have to stop whatever stupid thing I’m doing to help my mom out, in this case, to look at the names signed at the bottom of a rather generic Christmas card with some generic greeting about ‘Jesus being the reason for the season’ and hoping that the recipient also feels ‘joy to the Earth.’

But there’s a couple extra sentences. Something about how ‘we haven’t seen you in a long time and we hope you are well.’

And then I see the names. It’s from the Bailey family.

***

Thank you very much for your Christmas card to my mom.

She was very happy to receive it, though I'm sorry to say she's begun to suffer from dementia and doesn't actually remember you. I tried to tell her about your family, even show her old photos of Aaron, but no luck. She's been like this for a couple years now, and my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's for more than five years now and can't even really hold a conversation anymore. Though I wonder if she saw you if it'd be different.

***

My hands tremble—more than they usually do—as I try to write out these words. I’ve never written anything like them, and it strikes me as weird, above all else. Specifically, telling somebody else that those concrete memories that link them to my parents, those links are gone.

I’m pretty sure this seems overdramatic to anyone other than myself. It isn’t, after all, like telling people that my mom passed away.

The Baileys are a special family in my life. I was friends with one of the sons: Aaron, a dear childhood friend from fourth grade. After third grade, my mom took my out of public school and away from my old friends, and stuck me in this private Christian school, only to take me back out and back into public school. It was a lonely, weird time. But for those six months, I had Aaron. And even when I went back to public school, we stayed in touch throughout high school. He was proof to me that you could stay friends, no matter what.

My mom invited his family over for Christmas dinners. They invited us over in return. We seemed to be more than the families that spent time together simply because the children spent time together. His mom and my mom talked. They became actual friends on their own right.

That was more than fifteen years ago, definitely in the bucket I would’ve considered ‘long-term memory.’

My mom’s brain doesn’t seem to agree.

I tell her about the Christmas parties she used to throw, which she remembers.

“You used to invite the Baileys, remember?”

She thinks for a moment.

“No…”

“Aaron has a sister, Tessa.”

“Tessa…” she repeats, as if trying to search her memory for any recollection of such a name, only to shake her head again.

I wonder if maybe she does remember, but just can’t recall the Baileys right now and needs the right stimulus, because maybe the brain is more than just short- and long-term memory, but also contextual, and based on distributed cognition.

I try associating them with another friend of my mom’s, who she does remember. “You used to see Mary and Allison. You remember Allison, right?”

“Allison, yes.”

“The three of you used to get together?”

“Did we really?” she asks genuinely, but I also know she asks to admit that she does not.

I try one more thing. I dig—and I do have to dig—to find and show her photos of Aaron.

Still, nothing.

Seeing Aaron does stir up something in me, though.

***

This is probably way more information than you were hoping for, but it was very nice of you to still write cards to my mom after all these years and I wanted to write back. Actually, my mom was the one who asked me to write back to you on her behalf.

I hope your family is well. Aaron and I don't keep in touch much but I hope everyone is well. I think back on all of our times together, whether at your home or ours, very fondly. I live in the Bay Area now, and you can get in touch with me if you’d like.

***

“What should I do, Daniel?”

I pick up the card again, still retracing the memories in my mind.

“Maybe I should send them a card,” she wonders out loud.

“But you don’t even remember them.”

She seems deflated by this, and maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. I make a mental note to myself to not make her deteriorating memory seem like it’s something that is her fault—something to be used against her. It is a lesson that will take time to learn, I know.

“Can you write them a card for me? Just write down that it is from me and your father.”

“Sure,” I tell her, placing the card back on my desk, immediately wondering if I should write more in the card that I send.

***

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Cheers,
Daniel

***

I sign, seal the envelope, put a stamp on it and drop it into the mailbox. It’s the first Christmas card I’ve sent that’s like this. It’s the first Christmas card I’ve written in ages.

I wonder how Aaron’s parents will react. I wonder if they get cards like this regularly now. Or do they just send Christmas cards off and simply hope they never get a ‘return to sender?’ I suppose maybe no news, is good news.

I wonder if they will tell Aaron about this strange card.

Aaron.

Aaron and I, despite staying good friends after I switched schools, did not actually stay in touch after high school. We reunited in college for a year or two, only to disappear off on our own paths again. Still, as I’m forced to look back on our friendship, I realize that ours was special to me for one simple reason: it evolved.

Connection requires many things. It often starts with something simple, like going to the same school. It also requires a healthy dose of chance and luck. But ultimately, it also requires effort. You have to work at it, even if it’s just a small card around Christmas time every year.

For some reason, after we stopped being classmates, Aaron and I tried to stay friends. And because of it, even if only for a time, we did.

I wonder how he’s doing. Maybe, just like his parents wrote mine, just like how I wrote them back, maybe I should write to him too.

Connection is, I suppose, a time-sensitive thing after all.