December 28, 2008 – Izzy and I visited Warren again today, and we decided it was time for another poem about his relationship with Helen, his wife of more than 60 years, who died last year. This is his first holiday week without Helen. He is at home, tending to business, watching TV, talking with friends, gracious and at ease, as always. He and I are going to get together on New Year’s morning to toast the New Year with a bottle of wine he is saving for the occasion. Perhaps we will get drunk early in the day. I think I’m up for that.

  This poem was about Warren’s recollection of their first Christmas/New Year together, when they were both students at Michigan State in 1947, and were living in a 22 by 8 foot trailer with no running water or electricity, with their first dog, Spike.

    I remember our first Christmas and New Year together,
    as if it were yesterday. I remember Helen’s laughter, sparkling
    like water in the sunlight.
    We were living in a trailer.
    We had to walk down a plankway to get
    to water, because of the mud.

    There was a communal water facility
     about 500 yards from the trailer, and the
     trailers were all packed tightly together.

     We loved it there, there was hardly
     room to turn around, but it was our home,
     a palace to us. I had two jobs, and got up
     every morning at 3 a.m., and Helen worked in
     the school library, so it was rare that we had
     an evening together.
  
    Our Christmas dinner was a box of macaroni and
    cheese, which cost 19 cents and we cooked it on a
    hot plate, and we laughed and told stories all
    night long.
 
    We had no room for decorations, but we had
    a tiny Christmas tree, and Helen baked cookies
    and hung them on the tree.

    Helen gave me a hammer for Christmas,
    and I still have it.
    I bought her a dress which
    I could not afford.
  
    We sang Christmas carols together,
    and we especially loved Jingle Bells
    because it was so cheerful.

    On New Year’s eve, we went out for a drive
    and a truck backed into us,
    and we never went out on New Year’s Eve again
    after that.

    But I will always remember that first Christmas,  the
    tiny tree, the macaroni and cheese, the tiny trailer that was
    our first home, singing and laughing, always laughing.

    I think it was one of the happiest Christmases of my life.