Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hi, everyone. This is Dawn Klem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs.
[00:00:08] We're in the middle of December while I'm taping this. And so getting ready for Christmas, my house is all decked out.
[00:00:18] And this is the time of year that I really think about my mom the most. I don't know. She absolutely loved Christmas. She's been gone now five years in October.
[00:00:35] This past October, she died a week after my birthday. I remember saying, she better not die on my birthday. Isn't that terrible? I should be ashamed of myself. But I still. I mean, maybe she didn't want me to forget her. Like I could, right?
[00:00:52] Well, anyhow, this podcast is going to be about her and her celebration of Christmas.
[00:01:01] So she absolutely loved Christmas. And when we were growing up, my brother and I and my dad and my mom, we always had great Christmases. We didn't have a huge amount of money, but my brother and I didn't know that. We didn't care. We were happy with whatever we got, and we always had a Christmas tree and a great celebration, and it just a wonderful time.
[00:01:26] After my brother and I were gone, I think my mom started to like Christmas less. And my dad definitely did not like Christmas. That's probably why my mom didn't, because he would complain about Christmas who want, but he's kind of like Mr. Bah Humbug, you know what I mean?
[00:01:47] But my mom, after my dad died and my mom came to live with me in 2002, so she came the first Christmas, 2002, and then we had our last Christmas together in 2018. I spent every single Christmas with her from that time on. And. And of course, I had all of the Christmases from when I was growing up until age 19.
[00:02:23] So there you go. I. I got to start out having Christmas with her, and I got to end up having Christmas with her before she died. And Christmas was definitely her holiday.
[00:02:38] We were having most of our Christmases in Maine because she would come out for the school year to help me take care of my two adopted daughters.
[00:02:49] And in 2007, Craig, my husband, had gotten a job back here in Michigan. And so we decided we were going to come back to Hillsdale, my hometown, where my mom's house was, and celebrate Christmas with her at her house. Oh, my gosh, she was so excited to be able to host Christmas at her house.
[00:03:16] And so we were excited too, because it was the first time my kids actually got to go to grandma's house for Christmas. I mean, when I was growing up, the Whole time we went to my grandma's house for Christmas. So it's a whole different scenario from the way I was brought up. And so we were excited, too, because we wanted her to be at my mom's house for Christmas. We wanted them, I should say, to be at my mom's house for Christmas so they could see how my mom rang in the holiday.
[00:03:47] And true to my mother, the house was decorated to the nines. Okay? She had bought a fake tree, and she had red velvet bows all over the tree that she had hand tied on those bows.
[00:04:09] And then she had all of these spectacular ornaments all over the tree. I mean, it just looked amazing.
[00:04:19] She collected brass. She loved brass. So she had a lot of, like, brass bells. She had brass deer on the coffee table. I mean, there wasn't an inch of her little living room that was not decorated for Christmas.
[00:04:36] And my kids walked in the house and they were like, oh, Grandma, this is the most beautiful Christmas we've ever seen. It's so funny because Craig and I lived in bigger houses than my mom did, but it doesn't mean a big house is everything. You know what I mean? Her house was so warm and inviting, and they were just so excited to be there with her. She could have had mud up on the windows and they still would have thought it was great. They were just beside themselves that they were going to be spending Christmas at grandma's that Christmas. We did have a great Christmas, and she cooked a big meal for us. I like casserole steak. It's one of my favorite things.
[00:05:29] So if she isn't with me during my birthday time, if she wasn't, I should say, with me during my birthday, then she would make the casserole steak for Christmas. Either one was fine with me. I could have had it at both. It was so good, and we were all looking forward to it. And the girls really didn't eat a lot of red meat at that time, but they absolutely loved the casserole steak to. And the best thing about going to my mom's house is she belonged to the Presbyterian church. And so we would get dressed up and they did something like a midnight mass at the church. So we would go the night before Christmas day, so Christmas Eve, and then we would go again the next morning on Christmas morning.
[00:06:22] And I don't know, there's something about going to church at night that just makes it feel so much more special.
[00:06:30] And our kids were just. They were over the moon, all dressed up in their little outfits, going to church with Grandma. And then Getting up and going back to church and trying to understand, you know, the importance of what this holiday really is.
[00:06:52] They did go to church in Romania, but they didn't really have a great understanding of it. And there was a lot of time in between before they really started going back to church with us. So that was the first time that we all came to Michigan for that holiday.
[00:07:14] But there's another time that I'll never forget that I had with my mom. And this time of year always makes me think about it.
[00:07:25] I had been working at the Catholic hospital in Muskegon, and I was in a director level role. I know I've spoken about that before. And I was working hard. I'm not going to lie. I was coordinating a lot of things.
[00:07:43] And I know my mom, the girls, and my husband were all very frustrated because it felt like I spent more time at work than I did at home. Well, that's what happens. We get into these big jobs because we want to be able to provide for everybody. And basically we were supporting my mom, 75% of it, I would say. So I really wanted to make the money to make sure that everybody was getting their needs met.
[00:08:14] Craig had a good job, but he wasn't making that much money. So it really. The burden was on me.
[00:08:24] My mom had been pretty vocal about how I was working all the time. I never got a chance to really enjoy anything. I'm. My kids are growing up and I'm not really there present is how she would put it. And, you know, I remember thinking to myself, my gosh, you're now you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. First she wants me to go back to school and get my graduate degree and get a big job. Then I get a big job and I'm working all the time and she's complaining about it, right? I mean, I know I'm not alone. I know there's plenty of other people out there that feel the same way.
[00:09:08] But I was doing my best and I wanted to honor my mom and have some time with her alone during the Christmas holiday.
[00:09:19] So I remember waking up one morning and it was definitely a blizzard and the girls had already gone to school. They. So they hadn't called off school yet. And as time went on, it was getting worse and worse. So I figured, oh, they'll probably be home by noon. They probably aren't going to keep them a whole day, but they'll make it through today. And they definitely aren't going to have school tomorrow.
[00:09:50] And My mom had been telling me that she thought I should buy another Christmas tree. We had always had a natural Christmas tree, but she says, you have a big enough house that you could buy some artificial trees to put in the house. Well, that was in the beginning. I thought, wow, that's blasphemous.
[00:10:12] Nobody has an artificial tree. I had never had an artificial tree. The whole time we were growing up, we always went out and cut our own tree down. And since I've been married to Craig, we always go every year to cut our tree down, including this year. So I just couldn't understand why she would want me to buy an artificial tree.
[00:10:34] But I started looking into it, and I found, like, a little slim tree, and it's like 7ft tall. And I thought, oh, you know, I've got a big dining room. I could put that right in the corner of the dining room and probably be kind of neat to have the Christmas tree on while we're eating our Christmas dinner. I think I will definitely figure that out. I think I'm gonna try it. So I had ordered the tree. Craig had put the tree up. All the lights were already on it. And on that morning when we were having a snowstorm, I just looked at my mom and I said, you know what?
[00:11:18] I'm not going to go to work today.
[00:11:21] And she's like, what? I said, yep, I just don't feel like driving in the middle of the snow. I just don't have it in me. Today.
[00:11:31] I'm going to take the day off.
[00:11:34] So what would you think about you and I decorating this Christmas tree? Well, she was so happy. I'm never gonna forget that. She was elated that it was just gonna be her and me decorating the tree together.
[00:11:55] She was someone that. I mean, this is a while ago, so you have to remember. But if after every Christmas, we would always go to either the Hallmark stores or the drugstores and buy wrapping paper half off and ornaments half off. So she had a multitude of ornaments that she had been tucking away.
[00:12:24] And while I was sitting at the dining room table, she comes down with, like, three bags filled with ornaments. And I was just cracking up to myself, leave it to her, you know, I wouldn't even have known. I would never have known.
[00:12:40] So we start going through the ornaments, and she has these clip on birds, and they have long curly tails with feathers. And she had red birds. And then she had these things, other things that you clip into the tree that are golden burgundy. And she had stars and red ornaments and green ornaments. She loved red. Red was her favorite color. No wonder she loved Christmas so much.
[00:13:11] So we unpacked everything that she had, and we slowly just started to decorate that tree.
[00:13:21] And we were talking the whole time, and we were laughing, and my mom was funny when she wanted to be. She was very funny. So it was just such a special moment in time that I had with my mom when there wasn't controversy or conflict about something or there wasn't a problem.
[00:13:48] It was just such a special moment when we decorated that tree. I think it took us about three hours to decorate that tree and get it the way that we wanted to.
[00:14:04] And I remember looking out the window going, I'm so glad I didn't go to work today. It was still snowing the whole time. The girls ended up getting out of school about an hour early.
[00:14:17] And they came home and the tree was all done and lit up in the corner. And they were squealing with joy because they loved Christmas, too, thanks to my mom. And they just thought it was the most beautiful little tree they had ever seen.
[00:14:36] So I flash forward now because it's been, you know, five years.
[00:14:43] I still have that tree.
[00:14:46] So I've had that tree for 10 years.
[00:14:50] This year, the lights went out in the middle section. So Craig took all of the old lights off of the tree and restrung it with new clear lights. And it's so bright. It's just beautiful. It's so bright.
[00:15:11] And in my box in the basement, I have tucked away for this tree all the ornaments that my mom and I had put on that day.
[00:15:29] So I had yesterday, all by myself, to decorate that tree.
[00:15:39] And I spent the whole time thinking about my mom and the things that she said when we were putting them up and figuring out the placement where she would want those bulbs to be. And when Craig came home from work last night, he looked at that tree and he said, oh, your mom would be so proud to see that you're keeping her Christmas tree alive and well.
[00:16:11] And I thought, yeah, that's right. It's a tribute to my mom.
[00:16:18] It really is a tribute to my mom.
[00:16:22] And it's a tribute to a special memory that I will always have.
[00:16:29] When I think about my mom and I think about Christmas, and I remember how lucky I was just to have her living there with me and helping me so much.
[00:16:44] I think sometimes I look back and go, did I do enough for her? I was so busy trying to meet everybody's needs. I never even knew if I was doing what she wanted me to do or needed me to do. I remember thinking I oh, I hope so. I hope I did enough.
[00:17:05] But sometimes you're in your own little world and you don't even realize that time is limited in this life, right?
[00:17:17] I mean, she was 85 when she died and she did live a great life. And by the way, she smoked cigarettes all the way up until now day she died and nobody was ever going to stop her from smoking cigarettes, believe me.
[00:17:33] So I feel like, well, she got to do what she wanted to do and I'm just lucky that I have that special memory of her and Christmas and it'll live in my heart until I move on.
[00:17:59] Thank you for listening to my story today.
[00:18:03] I'm sure each and every one of you has a special memory that you hold in your heart too, whether it be with your spouse, your children, or one of your parents.
[00:18:18] And this is the time of year when we are grateful for everything that we've had in our life.
[00:18:28] It's a special time, Christmas, and it gives us time to think. And I think that's so important.
[00:18:42] So I am going to be starting to put podcasts out every Saturday now. I have all of my podcast tape and I have been copyrighted. My husband's so happy about that and so I'll just be. It'll just be on a regular schedule now. It'll come out every Saturday morning. I'll put out a message on Facebook and Instagram so everybody knows. Please pass on my or share my podcast with people if you feel so inclined. I would really appreciate it. Forget to subscribe. If any of you have a story that you would like me to tell or you would like to talk on my podcast, that would be great. You can go to my website milkmon.com m I l k m o n.com and leave me an email. Or you can call me directly on my cell phone 616-843-1392 and I'd be happy to talk to you and figure out how we want to put your story or message out to the world.
[00:20:07] It's great to share these stories and it gives me really a lot of time to think about things that I think I took for granted in my life.
[00:20:17] Things that are special and things that are not so great.
[00:20:21] But feel free to use my venue as a place to do the same thing. It's actually really quite healing and I think when we share stories with each other, we realize how interconnected we really are until the next time.
