Find the magic

It still stings a little when I drop our kids off at school.

I can’t bear to part with them, even now. Not even for a few hours. Because I don’t actually know if I’ll see them again.

That fear of never getting to say goodbye comes from losing my dad suddenly. I was on my way to get a haircut in a snowstorm the night before he passed.

I was going to call him, but it was snowing, and it was late, and I’m sure I had to work, too. So I didn’t.

We left it somewhere with a text like, “Love you, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

And then tomorrow never came.

And this is why I can’t leave for anywhere, even to drop off a letter in the postbox four stop signs away, without saying “I love you” to everyone in the house - even our dog.

Which is all to say, I have thought obsessively about what I say to my kids when I drop them off at school, in case they are the last words I ever say to them.

In case I am stolen from them, I want them to have memorable last words from their father so they don’t have a wound that will never heal, like I do.

I’ve tried so many unnatural, contrived-but-heartfelt phrases that were either too cerebral, too long, or both. And finally it came to me this summer vacation.

“Find the magic.”

This fits what I want to tell them perfectly.

Find the magic means - go look for it. Listen with your whole heart. There are extraordinary things around us, and every person has extraordinary things in them. There is God in all things.

The magic is the secret sauce. It is source of all good things. Of all joy. Of all redemption and reconciliation. Of all the suffering we overcome. Of all creativity and beauty. Of all love and laughter.

There is magic everywhere, so go find it.

—

The first time we went to Disney World, Robert was almost four. And as many families do, our last moment at the park is always at the Magic Kingdom, watching the fireworks over Cinderella’s Castle.

And there we were, on Main Street USA, as the music and lights were hitting their crescendo in the buildup to the finale. And there was song playing that had a dramatic pause in the melody. And we heard the singer sing, “You are the magic.”

And one of the best memories I’ll ever have happens next.

Robert, turns to Robyn, his eyes as full of innocence and wonder as they could possibly be, and says,

“Mommy, I am the magic.”

And therein lies the hidden message of, “Find the magic.”

Boys, if you’re reading this, this is one of those posts that’s an insurance policy of sorts. A little bit of love and guidance tucked away in case I’m gone too soon.

When I said “find the magic” you never needed to look far. The most wonderful and powerful magic has always been close.

You are the magic.

I have seen it your whole lives, and knew it before you were born. You boys have been the greatest store of magic I have ever known.

The magic I have been asking you to find, has been and always will be the magic in you.

I Believe in Christmas Magic

There is magic in Christmas, and I believe in it.

The root of where my belief comes from is our family’s lore, originating from a time just preceding my birth. As the story goes, my parents were having a hard time conceiving. At the time they were new immigrants to this country, living in Chicago, I think.

They didn’t have much support or know many people. I can only assume they had little money. As I recall, my father insisted upon my mother learning English. And so she went, taking the bus in the dead of winter, to a Catholic Church that offered English classes to new Americans.

And if you know Chicago, it’s damn cold in the winter. And yet, despite my mother’s protest, my father sent her off trudging through the frigid city to learn to speak the language of this country.

At some time during that season of their life, my mother prayed. Prayed in the broadest sense, I suppose, but really she was making a deal. She promised, to whom I don’t know, that if she was blessed with a child she would put up a Christmas tree, every year.

I am obviously here now, and sure enough, every year a Christmas tree goes up in our Hindu household, for reasons bigger than the commercial and assimilating to avoid conflict. On the contrary, we have not assimilated into Christmas, we have assimilated Christmas into us.

Christmas trees are a durable tradition for Robyn and her immediate family, too. Every year on Thanksgiving she trims the family tree while her mother cooks dinner and the rest of the crew heads to the stadium to watch the Detroit Lions football team, almost invariably, lose the Thanksgiving Day game.

In our own home, we have created our traditions with each other and our children. We trim the tree right around Thanksgiving and start a solid month of listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies, always starting first with White Christmas. We eagerly await the first weekend snow, and like clockwork we watch The Polar Express and drink hot cocoa. We unpack and read classic books out of the seasonal box, like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, or ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas which Robyn’s father reads to the family on Christmas Eve, after we all go to church, eat a family dinner, and do a secret sibling gift exchange.

But of all these traditions, and others I haven’t described in detail, the Christmas tree is still the most mystic and alluring. It’s where the magic of Christmas has always resided, at least for me.

After we put up all our ornaments and trimmings and lights, I find myself, every year, sitting on the wooden floor of our family room, carefully studying the tree. This year, I had our sons beside me, for a fleeting moment at least, looking up. It is our family yearbook up there.

Every ornament has a story, a purpose. There are ornaments from Robyn and my’s childhood, representing our experiences and interests growing up. Then there are the ones that represent significant moments in our life together - like our first Christmas together, our first home, or the metallic gold guitar ornament we bought in Nashville which commemorates our honeymoon. 

There are ornaments demarcating when our family has grown, dated with the births of each of our children. There are the ornaments we have from our family trips, most recently a wooden one we luckily found in the gift shop on our way out of North Cascades National Park.

Our Christmas Tree is our life story, our histories intertwined with the branches and lights. It is the only time machine I know of that actually works - drawing me into memories and stories of a different time and place. More than that, it’s a window to the future, leaving me feeling wonder and hope for the possibilities of the coming year. When I am there, at the foot of the tree, sitting at the edge of the red tree skirt, I am all across the universe.

This to me, is magic.

As I am sitting here writing this, it is the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2021. The first weekend snow fell last night. We are in our family room, watching The Polar Express. Robyn and the kids brewed some hot chocolate, right on cue with the appropriate scene in the film. I see them all on the couch, snuggling a few feet over from me. Our family Christmas tree is immediately behind me, the reflection of it’s lights glowing softly on my iPad screen. 

I see the snow covered branches, wet and heavy, out our study room window. The neighborhood is quiet and our radiators are toasty warm, as if we were able to set them at “cozy” instead of a specific temperature.

As I sit here, trying my hardest to soak up this moment, I know that much of the stories we share at Christmas, like Santa Clause’s sleigh and reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and any assortment of Christmas “miracles” reported on the local news probably are not true, strictly speaking. I cannot verify them or explain them enough with empirical facts to know they are true. And I will never be able to.

But I still believe in the magic. Because of the tree, and what happens nearby.

Our tree, and what it represents, is a special relic in our family. As we put it up, year after year, it reminds me that our history is worth remembering and that our future is something to be hopeful about. Our tree, and what it represents, renews my belief that there is magic in Christmas.