CityView Magazine

12 | November/December 2015 We three brothers never could convince my mother of our innocence as it pertained to the great Christmas calamity that occurred in our childhood. When her departure from this world unwantingly rushed toward us, I went to her to plead our case one more time. While she was compassionate and angelic, I do not for a minute think that she believed me any more in that moment than she did decades earlier at the time of the catastrophe. McFadyen's Musings BY BILL MCFADYEN Mom's Lament I n the summer of that year long ago, Bill Morgan's cat had a litter of kit- tens three doors down. With the persistence of a convicted eight- year-old, I kept bringing home one tiny calico over and over. en I would take it back over and over when my normally sweet Mom would get to the "I mean it" point of saying no to my repetitive re- quests for keeping it. at little kitten was weaned one Saturday aernoon when, for the ump- teenth time, I fetched it. I held it bed- side where Mom was uncharacteristi- cally and luxuriantly catching a nap. I woke her with the same refrain: "Can I keep it?" She sort of erupted from out of that rare and dreamy reprise from motherhood duties. "Yes! Just keep it!" I did not wait for her to realize what she had done, immediately running out of the room and naming the kitten, Dyna- mite, thereby bringing to life one of my two long-standing imaginary friends. (e other, Duke, simultaneously faded into the oblivion of some psychology text book.) Dynamite brought me great com- panionship, leaping from tree to bush to window sill and climbing the screens of the back porch. When inside, she would slumber on my red bear rug, clawing at it on her way to sleep. But when she awoke, the furniture inside became the equivalent of her trees and window sills on the outside. For that reason, the cat was relegated to liv- ing with nature. Only brief and fully proctored visits inside were allowed. Mom always made a cel- ebration of the Christmas tree. In those Mirror Lake Drive days, we were a colored light family, as opposed to the N. Edgewater Drive white-light family we became later. So the first or- der of tree-trimming was to string the strands so that no blue or red or yellow bulbs overlapped each other. ere had to be perfect visual spacing, creating an indoor electric Christmas rainbow. en the ornaments went on. Most of them had a story that went back years. Some were child-craed at Miss Davis's playschool or Miss Barnhill's kinder- garten or maybe from Sunday school. Finally, the star went on top with great pomp from the assembled family. Mom's finished product always looked like the jacket covering of a Christmas album. It came to be that time when school let out for Christmas vacation and the pace toward Christmas Eve was both agonizingly slow in the moment and too short to remember in retrospect. Broth- er Malcolm was 13 years old; certainly old enough to watch the other two of us while Mom went out for whatever she remembered that she had forgotten. Taking advantage of Mom's absence, I cuddled Dynamite onto the red bear. en the three of us brothers went about inventorying the presents under the tree, not only by quantity, but also by predicted category of good presents verses probable shirts, socks and under- wear. Dynamite found nothing restful about our childhood squeals and ban- terings, especially not given the unfa- miliar smell of Frasier fir in the house. Rather than sleeping, she investigated. On the backside of the calamity, Mom was probably correct in her initial assumption that we boys were fighting. We usually were, especially Malcolm and me. It was probably an argument over what the eventual tally of presents would be and probably as a result of Malcolm's assertion that he would have the most by the time we started open- ing them. Preoccupied as such, not one of us saw Dynamite enter the room. e first we glimpsed of her was in the .75 seconds af- ter the terrifying crash…the crash of the perfectly decorated tree hitting that por- tion of the living room floor that was un- carpeted. Broken ornament shards and A Dynamite Christmas

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