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When I toss in fourteen boxes of frozen meals, I don’t put much thought into which ones.They all taste pretty similar.
My cart only a quarter full—it’s amazing how little is needed when I’m not trying to teach my son healthy eating habits—I can’t help noticing the display where the little Christmas trees were once lined up, each adorned with plastic candy canes and tiny red balls.But now, they’re gone.
Remembering what my son had said last night, I frown.
Nicholas was right.Harrisshouldhave a tree.Even if it’s just a little one.
“Excuse me,” I ask someone restocking the display of toilet paper at the end of the aisle.“Do you have any more of the little trees that have ornaments on them?”
“No, we ran out.”
My frown deepens.“Are you getting any more of them in?”
“Not this late in the season, no.But we still have those ones.”He juts a chin to the display of the slightly larger, undecorated trees—not quite the tabletop size ones that Nicholas mentioned.
“Okay.Thanks.”I start to step away.
Then I remember what Harris said last night, and I ponder how he can’t be with his family because he’s serving our country, unable to go too far from base with his present job.
I frown at the idea that he thinks he can’t have a tree just because it would die on him if the military suddenly made him travel someplace.
Icouldhave taken care of his tree, just like Nicholas said, if he got called away suddenly.
I find myself turning my cart, headed back to the display.Nibbling my lip, I stare at the smallest of the trees that they have left.
Those ones—they’re more than just an afterthought.They require ornaments and, well…effort.This kind—with root balls planted in bright red cellophane-covered pots—people buy with full intentions of planting in their yard as soon as the weather warms.
A tree like that—I shake my head slightly—it seems too much.The little ones that come already decorated would have been a lot more appropriate to give as a neighborly gesture.
But these ones?
I walk over to the smallest of the bunch, but it’s still maybe three feet tall.It kind of looks lonely here, like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
Breathing in, I catch myself smiling at the aroma of fresh pine.I love that scent greeting me as I walk down the steps of my home each morning.It reminds me, even on the days when my son is away, that this time of year feels magical.
I owe that scent mysanityon some days.
A home needs that scent at this time of year.
I find myself starting to reach for my phone in my purse.I should ask Charlisa for input.This is definitely one of those phone-a-friend moments.
Then I can hear her voice in my head.“Don’t do it.You’ll look like you’re fishing for a date.”
That’s exactly what she’d say.And maybe they are words that I need to hear right now—because I can’t pretend I live in a world where Navy heroes date divorced moms who have kids with health challenges and medical debt.
Charlisa wasn’t there last night.She wouldn’t get it.But if the exact same thing happened toherand some Navy guy was spending a tree-less Christmas away from his family because he’s doing his job, she’d be loading that darn tree into her grocery cart too.
It’s the right thing to do.
Without allowing myself to ruminate any more, I lift it from the display and put it in my cart.It barely even fits; it’s so much larger than those small tabletop ones they had here last week.And just as I’m second guessing myself, I smell the pine again, so strong and lovely, as much a part of the Christmas season as candy canes and snowmen.
Snowmen, like the one he somehow managed to inspire my kid to make with him.Smiling, I remember the way Nicholas threw that snowball at me and ran—ran like a perfectly normal kid and not one who has already been sliced open three times by the best heart surgeons in the nation.
Harris will probably never know what that moment meant to me.
Screw it.I’m getting this tree for Harris, and I don’t care how it looks.
I’m just doing what any other woman would do if she’s patriotic enough to appreciate all that this guy gives up regularly to protect the freedom I cherish.
