The year of my birth is the same year CBS started airing the stop-animation Christmas classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer yearly. Burle Ives and his iconic voice, I mean, it just wouldn't be Christmas without it. At forty-three, I still get excited when it comes on and my baby brother texts me to make sure I'm watching.
Rudolph, the weirdo, the misfit, the different one who steps up during an emergency to save Christmas—I can relate. His story resonates with me deeply. From the way the family covers his nose with mud to disguise his gift to the Island of Misfit Toys, I get it.
My brother and I would grab our pillows and blankets, lay them on the living room floor in front of the big tube television. Our dogs would cuddle with us and we'd hope mom would make popcorn. We knew dad hated watching kid's shows, he made that quite clear, but he'd let us watch the specials anyway.
During the commercial after Rudolph, dad jumped out of his chair in a rather excited way, went through the living room to his bedroom (where we knew the Christmas presents were hidden!) Johnny and I could hear him digging through the closet, moving things, making a racket that excited us even more because if it took that long to get to it, it must be good. We didn't need to speak to one another, we knew the other was thinking about the Christmas list we'd rattled off to Santa and the letters we'd written and sent to the North Pole. We just knew something amazing was about to transpire. We might have even bounced and giggled a little tiny bit.
Dad came rushing into the living room and headed outside and of course, we ran after him. He was already out the door when we caught up. The snowflakes were as big as quarters, but we were sure that if we looked hard enough, we'd be able to see Rudolph's nose through it all.
Click. Click. BOOM!
We froze.
Click. Click. BOOM!
We stared at each other. We wiped off the foggy window and tried to see what dad was doing. The door flew open and the cold rushed in and I could feel it even through my footie pajamas. Dad laughed. I wanted to laugh, too, because he sounded so very happy and that really didn't happen unless he was in the kitchen with mom and their friends playing cards late into the night.
"I got him! Rudolph is dead. Let's go find him so we can hang him on the wall."
With tears streaming down my face, I argued, "No you didn't."
He turned from the door and stepped down the two stairs of our cement porch, pointed his gun to the heavens. We both covered our ears in sync.
Click. Click. BOOM!
He turned around, gun still aimed to the sky, now angry and definitely not laughing, "Rudolph is dead. No more Christmas."
"Jo-ohn, don't tell them that," mom said.
"Why not? It's the truth. I shot Rudolph."
I ran to my bedroom crying. A little girl with a big spirit, a heart full of hope, and the weight of the world on her chest. I cried myself to sleep every year on Christmas Eve to the sounds of dad screaming at me to shut up and quit crying, but I'd cry harder and harder knowing Rudolph was dead. The underdog who overcame was dead and there was no Christmas and there was no hope.
* * *
When I think I'm finally healed of childhood trauma, this story reminds me that healing is a continual process. It doesn't end once and for all. It's not a place in time or a map dot that we can reference. It's a continual and ever-evolving presence. As is forgiveness.
The bitterness and anger, they do creep up and threaten to take root. Gardeners know that weeds are easily pulled up when they're just popping through the earth. To see anger and bitterness as a weed helps me to pull them out of my brain. In this scenario, I would envision my dad as a newborn, his parents doting over him, his siblings kissing his fat little cheeks. He was once innocent, loved, wanted. At least he was in my mind, because love is universal and at the end of the day, that's what we all want, isn't it? To feel loved and protected. Safe and secure. I see dad as pure love. Pure energy. Before a childhood of poverty with too many mouths to feed made him feel insecure and unimportant. Before the government swept his tender teenage self from the only place he'd ever known and dropped him in a foreign country with a gun to kill people. Before the mother of his first child forbade him from being a part of the child's life. By the time dad was shooting Rudolph, he'd had more pain inflicted upon him than I can fathom, and I've been through some shit.
Was he shooting Rudolph to symbolize his life of torment? The demons and ghosts from Vietnam that haunted his every moment? How do you watch your best friend die in the jungle and come away with hope? How do you kill uncountable human beings and sleep at night? How do you tell your little girl that she's just dreaming up a fantasy because the good in the world doesn't really exist in a world where governments force their boys to be killers?
You shoot Rudolph. You don't let her dream silly dreams of a reindeer with a gift saving the day and of misfit toys getting loving, happy homes. You don't allow her to become a dentist in a world of elves, because that's just television and it doesn't happen like that in real life. In real life, in his life, your hands are bloody, your mind is destroyed, and there is no hope.
I don't know if those are really the thoughts dad had running around in his head when he shot Rudolph, but it makes sense and looking back from this side of forgiveness and healing, I can understand why he had no hope and why he was very stuck in such an unhealthy place.
I spent much of my life wondering: Why me? Why was I the one chosen to bear his burdens, his anger, his hopelessness? (It wasn't just him placing that kind of weight on the high spirit of a little girl, it was just about everyone I encountered.) Why didn't mom stop him? What did I do to deserve such horrors?
I don't know if I've found answers, but I've found peace.
And that's way better than answers.
