We grew up in Lautbor among other places, in the area where Hayden’s Supermarket is located today. One Christmas, our father returned from a Fire Service training course in our big sister island of Trinidad. We clung to every word about his adventures, all the new and interesting things he encountered. For instance, we learned that people in Port of Spain preferred their peanuts and corn boiled. They also had professional mourners at some funerals – people paid to cry for the deceased. Strange! Actually, those stories we heard about later. Even as we did all that hugging, what we really wanted to know was what he brought for us in those big bags!
My brothers and sisters may remember other toys. The one I can never forget was that pinkish-orange bouncy ball. It was somewhat bigger than a breadfruit with whitish swirl designs. It was an instant hit. We kids ignored everything else and started tossing it around the living room. Ma’ was bawling to restore order in the house lest we broke something. I wish we had. After a spanking, we’d get back to playing with it again in the right place and at the right time. Instead, literally seconds after delivery, the beloved ball flew out of the window. It was stormy and grey outside. Goodwill Road gutters were muddy and swollen. We burst open the front door just in time to catch a glimpse of brightly coloured ball disappearing under the dark culvert – never ever to be seen again…
Nostalgia is good, but not too much. Sometimes we are guilty of obsessing with looking back. Instead of the good old days, we ought to be living in the moment, creating new fond memories especially for the little ones ourselves as well.
What kind of responses you get when you greet others such as “So how’s the holidays?” or “What’s your Christmas looking like?” Too often we hear things like, “Oh, times are tight.” “No money.” “Christmas nowadays is just not like before.”
Everything is relative. We could be living in Syria or South Sudan, North Korea or Kazakhstan. As a matter of fact Dominica was just categorized one of the wealthier countries in the Caribbean. True, the distribution of that wealth is an issue, because I suspect you and I may not be the ones with a lot of it. Yet, the same people who find that report controversial would not doubt for a second if the World Bank instead declared Dominica to be one of the poorest. So we give thanks for small mercies. Bigger ones will come.
Children may not appreciate how difficult things may be for the family right now. They will however, wonder why they cannot have what the other kids have. Yet the simplest of gifts can make a lasting impact if presented with love, gratitude and the right amount of mystery. It’s not so much what you give, but how you give. No doubt, we’ve all had the experience of spending considerable time and money on a gift only to find that someone else’s more expensive or less thoughtful gift completely seized the child’s attention.
One little girl’s father was soldier and away for Christmas. He had absolutely nothing to give except for his time and thoughtfulness. He had fashioned and empty gift box and lovingly wrote her name on it. “From Daddy, with lots of love.” He promised that one day Santa would bring her that something special she wanted. But for now, all he could give was a note on which he wrote, “Daddy’s kisses.” When her mother later broke the news that her father would never come home again, her most cherished remembrance of him was his ‘empty’ box of kisses…kisses that would never fade.
But the true Christmas is not just invisible; it’s deeper. We must be mindful that other customs across the wide spectrum of the human family also celebrate special feasts. There is generally a certain mystical component along with similar scheduled excitement. They use special music and decorations and cards and gifts and traditional meals and treats. For Chinese, it’s their special New Year; for Muslims, Eid; Jews, Hanukkah and Hindus, Diwali, the festival of lights, just to name a few.
So what is it about Christmas? From an intellectual standpoint, one could easily dismiss the nativity story. After all, a recent study found that 1% of women claim to have a given virgin birth. You have never been naughty, eh? …Right, right, I hear you! This taboo is so strong across cultures; one can imagine how heartfelt religion can be built up around it. But in order to dismiss this Good Tidings to all People, one would also have to explain away all the prophecies and the miracles in the lives of believers as they advanced the Kingdom.
Clergy bring out their best sermons knowing that the hearts of listeners are for some reason more sensitized in this season than at any other time of year. Humanity through the ages has tried to come to grips with the impact of that One Solitary Life on all of history. Not through the force of arms, but through that wonderfully amazing virtue called love, agape love. So even for the non-churchgoer, this is a time to open one’s heart just enough to listen and ponder what this is all about… a good time for reconciliation with loved ones and strangers with whom we may have had differences this past year.
We may have known betrayal and heartbreak, setbacks and struggle this year. Some may have known loss, but do we not grieve like those who have no hope. If we ignored the Christmas story, how would we fill that infinite void? What would we sing in place of Jennifer Hudson’s rendition of Oh Holy Night?. In recent weeks we discussed the poor, the sick and the lonely. It is not too late perform God’s own work for the least of these. Let’s put nostalgia in its rightful place as we busy we busy ourselves in preparation. May the comfort and joy of family and friends enfold you. And while doing last-minute Christmas shopping, if you happen to see a big man still stopping to play briefly with those bouncy balls – just shout out, “What’s up doc?!” Chances are you’ll be right.
Dr. Sam Christian is surgeon who runs the Urgent Care on 137 Bath Road. It offers general medical care, office surgery, acupuncture and microdermabrasion. He is Medical Adviser to the Dominica Cancer Society and author of the faith and fitness nutrition book, ‘Mannafast Miracle.’ Dr. Christian can be reached at 440-9133 or by writing to [email protected].
My grand father had nothing to give but that Christmas soup with almost quarter of sheep or goat meat I will always remember. he prepared it himself and waited for that Christmas day when my family and I would visit. This I will always remember as he would go under the bed in the bedroom,shift all the other stuff underneath there to bring out two bottles of ju-c. T,hat was for me the fun of Christmas, not forgetting going to midnight mas with this large Gas lamp which was lit once a year.
Tim Tim! Bois sec.
Dem Chrisitians like coute.
Whazzup Doc C when is the recall from Tiffany Ohio? It is 2014 almost the trial maybe coming up.
Will the local forces help like they did in the case of the other US-D/can in Mahaut who skipped town and turn politician.
New York & Tiffany Ohio will be open for businesssoon in 2014.
Tingle and shine minewhile.
oops my bad should read Sparkle & shine
Haters always find each other – in the US or DA. They trying hard to destroy the good this man doing.
Nothing they do will prosper. He shall not be moved!
Eat some fruit cake and be happy for a change.
Your bouncy ball story ripped a long-suppressed story right out of my subconscious.
Christmas when I was 5, my Grandmother brought me a Raggedy-Ann doll and chocolates from England. She died the next year. People kept telling me what I was doing with that ugly thing. All my other dolls and toys would get lost or break or something, but my worn-out Raggedy-Ann survives.
Thanks Doc for validating my attachment to something which is by far one of my most prized possessions.
And Merry Christmas!
Keep writing.
Doc you are an amazing person. It is true that we must thank God for small mercies and appreciate how lucky we are to be born in a land of water, fresh fruit and the freedom to say what we want, when we want and worship in church freely. Often times we see Christmas as money, fete and booze , forgetting the gift of life that we have. As a doctor you are ministering to the sick on Dominica, while enriching souls. Long may you and your work flourish. Your kind and thoughtful messages are unique, refreshing and needed at a time when so few show gratitude .
OMG Great stuff. Seasons greetings Doc !
“They also had professional mourners at some funerals – people paid to cry for the deceased.”
Sam, your pieces are always interesting to read; very informative: the beauty of it is that if you are the one who edits the response to your writing is that you allow the views of the respondents to be printed. You are not like that Antiguan boy, that no matter how I respond to his crap my views are never printed.
I know the reason why, and that is because he wrote sometime ago talking about dirty blood. I am not into the practicing of medicine, but even in a normal conversation I prefer to use the terms contaminated, infectious, or tainted blood.
Dirty blood is not a scientific medical term!
The dirty blood scenario, is derived from the bad (broken) English in the Antiguan culture, and in recent years heard commonly in Jamaica. That is not the topic anyway, so I will focus on that bit in this piece which caught my attention; and say, the paid mourners thing in Trinidad is not unique to Trinidad alone.
Such was the case in Dominica for a very long time, they were not paid, however they were known as criers, or people who Wales. My first experience with that part of our culture occurred when I was about five years old.
A lady who lived in the valley below our house died; someone came and told my grandmother of her passing, I remember my grandmother asked the messenger has anybody cried yet?
No was the answer; as such someone suggested that they go and find a lady named Lucresha, to do the crying or waling.
She lived two houses away from us, the next thing I remember is that this lady was standing at the cross road from our house with what we know as a belly band around her waist screaming in a howling tone, and that’s how the village was informed of the death of residence.
As the older people die, the tradition dies with them.
Note: a belly band in those days was eight or ten inches wide, and approximately five feet long, made out of white material, in any event it was long enough to circle the person waling body at least one and a half times; generally it would be utilized by the close family of the dead, indicating their distress.
Francisco Etienne-Dods Telemaque
Well said Dr. Christian. How often we forget the goodness of life when it was right in our midst. Xmas truly is the time of year when people understand the goodness of the Christ Child, the meaning of life. You said it right though, as much as we celebrate the joyfulness of life we tend to face the realities of it. Oh yes, for some reason our memories holds that special time when things were great. We do appreciate our young and carefree moments, and yes we just did not care about the realities or ugliness of life especially when there were no responsibilities. But you are so right. As we grow, the good times of yesterday sticks in our minds where that moment in some way forced itself to remind us that life is not only the joyfulness, but the human side of our beings. It is the good and the bad, and as human beings, as citizens of the world, we are our brother’s keeper, we are part of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. Thanks for your Xmas message, and l hope it touches others as it touched me.
Glad to see two intelligent men agreeing on the simple things of life. Adding you insight makes it a more powerful doctor-doctor message on Christmas.
It makes me feel good to know quality people getting something out of these DNO articles
Wow doc. You had crying there.My Christmas will have a little nostalgia . Two great people won.t be part of it. My dearest mum and the love of my life.I especially love the ending of that story for I ll be looking for that big man bouncing that ball. Just so I could say what s up doc! And hoping that ill be right.