‘ANOTHER CHRISTMAS STORY’ (Or, ‘I SENSE DEAD PEOPLE’)

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Five years after my Pa passed away in 1996, my Ma gave me a special Christmas gift - a house decoration. It was a glass and acrylic snowman and snowwoman to put out every December. She said to me that the snowman represented my Pa, and the snowwoman represented her. My Ma said, “By putting these snowpeople out, your Dad and I will always be with you at Christmas – even after I’m gone.” I have the characters rolled in bubble-wrap and keep them stored in a box marked ‘Stephen’s 2001 Snowmen (“Pa & Ma”: Glass)’.

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One Summer afternoon in 2002, I was at my Ma’s house; she was puttering around doing this and that while the Arizona Diamondbacks pre-game show was on the TV. At one point I said something to her about Diamondbacks first baseman Mark Grace, and she replied, “You’ll have to remind me. Who is Mark Grace?” I asked if she was joking and when she said she wasn’t, I told her to grab her purse and get in my truck. “Why? What’s wrong?” she wanted to know. I told her I didn’t know what was wrong but that I was taking her to the hospital IMMEDIATELY!

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My Ma was a lifelong, dyed-in-the-wool baseball fan, and for her to say “Who is Mark Grace?” was comparable to me saying, “What’s a Salty Dog and a Black Russian?” I knew something was seriously wrong with her. It turned out she had suffered a stroke, and in 2005 she went Home to God.

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Every year in December, I have put my “Pa & Ma” snowpeople out as representations of my parents who are no longer physically with me. I was unable to locate a photo of the snowwoman on the Internet, but below is a picture of exactly what my ‘Pa’ snowman looks like:

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In May of this year, a twelve-year-old Chinese boy named Xie (pronounced “Shay”) came to live with my brother Nappy and me. For a boy who’s only twelve, Xie is, like, the size of Godzilla - hence my nickname for him: Xiezilla.

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Well, one day in the first week of December I got out my Pa & Ma snowpeople and placed them on the table in the dining room, then I went about decorating the rest of the room for Christmas.

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About thirty minutes after I had put out my snowpeople, Xie emerged from his bedroom and walked into the dining room where I was. He took one look at the snowpeople on the table and then pointed at them and said to me, “This is your Dad and your Mom.”

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I’m sure my mouth fell open as I sat there mute for several moments, staring at Xie. Finally I managed to speak. “Why did you say those are my Dad and my Mom?”

Xie replied, “I don’t know. I just think to say.”

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I thought perhaps we had been discussing my parents not too long prior and so they were still on Xie’s mind, but thinking back, I couldn’t recall having spoken to him any time recently about my Pa and Ma.

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During Christmas dinner I related this event to my Brother and Sister and asked Xie if he remembered it. He said he did. I asked him again why he had said what he did and again his answer was that it had simply popped into his mind when he saw the snowman and snowwoman and so he just blurted it out.

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Just a strange coincidence? Sure. That’s all it was – just a strange coincidence.

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[Hi, Pa! Hi, Ma! Thanks for letting me know you’re still around. I hope you had a Heavenly Christmas.]

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~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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