I long for the simple Christmases of my past. Christmas was a big deal but it wasn’t about presents. It was about tradition. It was the traditions that we enjoyed every year, things that brought the whole family together. We spent the month before Christmas making cookies and candies. We made sugar cookies, chocolate chip, peanut brittle and old-fashioned fudge with Hershey’s cocoa – all stored in festive tins in anticipation of holiday get-togethers. The windows of our home were simply dressed with fresh pine sprigs and old-fashioned Christmas lights. The movie A Christmas Story wasn’t shown 24 hours a day on cable TV. It was a one-time event and we all sat down together to watch it with a big bowl of popcorn and Coca-Cola.
If you read my column with any regularity, you know that I love to cook, and November is the month when I get to prepare my most favorite meal: Thanksgiving dinner. Like most folks, I cook a traditional turkey dinner, but what makes it special to me is that each dish I serve is a reminder of Thanksgivings past.
As the destination for many a Ribner family outing, Michigan’s Little Bavaria played a big role in my childhood. My brother and I would become filled with excitement each time the family car turned north onto M-83 on its way to our destination: the Bavarian Inn. In addition to its delicious chicken dinners, our father, the son of Slovak immigrants, loved the old world charm of the restaurant’s Austrian and Alpine rooms. Perhaps this is why I long to live in a fachwerk, a timber-framed, stucco house set inside a deep and enchanting forest…
During my time with Lori and Julie, I felt the weight of the burden that they carry around every day. “The jail is a dark place, a sad and sometimes evil place,” said Lori, who admitted that some days she wants to despair and give up because what she sees is just too painful. Despite those moments of hopelessness, she said, “I can feel the presence of God walking with me, and I know his work has to be done here.” The women have such a sincere love for their patients that it wrings the heart. “I look at every single one of them as if they were part of my family,” Lori told me with tears in her eyes. “This person could be my mother, my brother, my child who’s been broken by this world. Are we just going to abandon them? We’re all brothers and sisters.”
I hate carrying a purse. In high school and even in college, I loathed the female obsession with purses so much that I used a wallet. Finally, when it became necessary to carry medication with me, I borrowed a purse from a friend. It was a simple design – brown leather, not too flashy – but it was Coach. Then, something happened to me. As I carried this purse, I became aware of its ability to bestow status. At the mall, I used to hope that people would notice what brand my bag was and envy it – and it wasn’t even mine! When I eventually returned the purse to my friend and bought one of my own (at Target), I was both relieved and discontented. I was relieved because I didn’t like how I had acted when I carried the Coach bag, but discontented because I had lost something that had made me feel good, even if it was shallow. In the end, the whole experience just made me feel empty.
Yes, I’m a “lefty” — and proud of it! While left-handed people comprise only ten percent of the population, my family was mostly left-handers: me, my father and my two brothers. Some people, however, just don’t understand what it’s like living left-handed in a right-handed world.
