The last year that the United States Postal Service delivered twice daily was.......

Christmas, 2014


It's easy to get lost in the hustle and commercial aspects of Christmas each year.  Usually, I end up ill from days of alternating sweat and chill from going in and out of stores bundled in down gear in Michigan's frigid temperatures.  Each year, I promise that I won't be the fool out at the last minute trying to pull off the fab holiday meal and looking for that elusive, must-have toy.  This Christmas proved to be a little different.  The kids now know that mom and dad make up Santa so a lot of pressure was off.  Also, having recently lost a relative, we are stuck in the time period where we count each holiday since my sister in law's death.  We are up to one Mother's day, two Thanksgivings and two Christmases.  As I write this, I try to remember when I stopped counting the post death holidays of my dad's passing.  I'm thinking four, maybe five.  Incidentally, this is Christmas number nineteen.


Anyway, this Christmas was marked by frantic making of memories because my mom is 86 and a half years old.  I also wonder at what age one starts again adding the "half" to their age.  I think that we all let it go after becoming a teenager.  I can't imagine a teen declaring that they are "13 and a half"!  I would guess that after about age 85, one start adding the "half" back, ever so grateful to make it another six months.  Well, that it what I've resorted to doing.  I proudly, thankfully declare my mother's age inclusive of the half because I am so grateful to say it.  I have bated breath every morning waiting for her to pick up her phone and so relieved (with an exhale) when she does.


So, what's up with the USPS trivia, you ask?  Well, we decided to play a party game on Christmas, "Wits and Wages".  Usually, my mother passes at anything that actually involves attention, trying to remember or constant movement.  I insisted that she play with my family of four and we packed our patience.  I thought that it might spark a few neurons as her memory is really bad these days.  The seven round trivia/guessing game started just as I expected.  If a percentage was the answer, she may give a number over a 100.  She forgot the sequence of the game even though every round involves writing down your guess and then betting on the correct guess (that may or may not have been your own).  Mom was actually doing ok with a little coaching i.e. "since there are only 168 hours in a week, your number should be less than that", "this answer will be in minutes", "you don't have to bet on your guess if another person's guess now seems more reasonable".  So, the game went on like this and my nine and eleven year old kids proved to be very patient.  We played one game so that everyone could get a feel for the game and then proceeded to game two where the expectation was more serious play, even for Granny despite her memory only lasting an average of 10 minutes.
So, then the question involved the USPS twice daily mail delivery.  My husband didn't know that there had ever been such a thing.  I remember my mother telling me about this when I used to beg for stories of times before I was born.  Then, everyone writes down a guess.  My husband's guess: 1862.  Was he thinking that this mail delivery involved the pony express??  My guess: 1962.  I knew that it had to be sometime before I was born in 1972.  I have no idea what my kids' guessed.  Any year in the 1900's is prehistoric to them.  Then, comes my mother's guess: 1950.  We all placed our bets and my mother bet it all on her answer and I followed suit.  To this point in the game, her answers were the ones that no one usually bet on but her.  One of the kids then read the answer and Hot Dog, Granny was not only closest to the actual answer (which determines the pay out) but was spot on - 1950 was the exact answer!  We gave high fives and then I saw a twinkle in my mom's eye.  She still had it!  I saw confidence; she was so ticked and so was I.  We all whooped it up and then joked that she was the only one at the table living at that time!


This was the best part of the Christmas day. I find myself studying her face, studying the veins in the back of her hands all the while trying to etch the tiniest details in my memory knowing that one day I will close my eyes and try damn hard to see her in my mind's eye.  I am trying to hold on to every piece of her and I mightily will the deterioration and death to stay at bay.  This entire Christmas season, I have had a cloud over me trying to make it special because it may be my mother's last Christmas.  This one, funny moment made me realize that I don't have to try so hard because the features and characteristics of my mother that warm my heart will never fade from memory. 


As I get ready to go to bed on this Christmas night, exhausted and thankful for family and a little emotional, I picture my beautiful mother as a skinny, youthful, sexy wife and mother of 22 years old in 1950 when the USPS delivered mail twice daily.  I imagine that young lady not knowing that 22 years later she would had a baby girl who would cherish every moment being her daughter.  Merry Christmas!!!