Holiday Loss & Perspective
My uncle James Prihoda of High Hill died last week, two days before Christmas.
He was an amazing man, who together with my aunt Carolyn, had 17 kids and 68 grandchildren.
No, those numbers are not misprints. His obituary appears on Page A8 today.
They were a beautiful example of a big, loving, hard-working family. And their kids have gone on to be amazing members of this area, and far beyond – a school superintendent, architects, a military officer and leaders in so many other fields.
James had a big, booming voice (in a family that big I supposed it was a necessity) and always seemed so happy.
In the past few years I saw him less and less, but back when I was a kid we always spent Christmas Day in High Hill at my grandparents house. James and some of the other guys would sit around playing Tarock (a Austrian game with its own set of ornate cards I still aspire to learn one day). Meanwhile, all the rest of the Wick cousins would play football or dominos or spoons (or go fishing if the weather was nice) all around the rest of the property.
The tradition of spending Christmas Day in High Hill died with my grandparents more than 20 years ago, but I’ve been thinking a lot about those days lately – and lamenting the loss of certain family holiday traditions as generations pass away.
But meanwhile, new traditions arise.
For the 14th consecutive year since we moved back to La Grange, we were back atop the hill at Hostyn for Christmas Eve.
But this Christmas Eve was quite a bit different than the last 13.
It’s been almost seven months since Holy Rosary Catholic Church – our church – was destroyed in a gas explosion.
The chain-linked fence surrounding the wreckage is still there, exactly as it has been since the firemen left June 9.
And while it’s been the big picture of it all (the wonderful woman, Verlene Kunschick, who died from injuries in the explosion, and the fact that an entire church building has to be rebuilt in a process that will take years) that’s been top of mind since the explosion, on Christmas Eve it was the little details that I was noticing too.
Every Christmas Eve the kids in the church put on a play reenacting the Nativity. Every year since we moved back, we’ve had a kid in that pageant. They’ve been angels and wise men, drummer boys – two of our kids, as infants, were even the live baby Jesus that Mary holds throughout the play.
This year our kids were a prophet, an innkeeper and a shepherd. But this year they were all wearing brand new costumes that had to be sewn (some by my mom) because all the old costumes were burned up in the fire.
Or youngest, the shepherd, was sad because he thought he wouldn’t get to hold a stuffed sheep like in last year’s play, because all those were gone too.
But somehow a dozen or so new stuffed lambs were there Saturday night for all the little shepherds.
From the time I was a kid there was always this huge ornate nativity scene that included an angel that nodded its head when you dropped a coin into a slot. We’d always bring coins to church on Christmas Eve to drop into that angel and see it nod.
On years we forgot, Doug Janda always seemed to have extra quarters.
The same angel I dropped quarters into as a kid, my own children marveled at 40 years later – up until last year. But that angel is gone now too, another casualty of the fire. Mass itself is now held in the church hall, and will be for the next few years.
But after a year when so much went wrong, Father Felix’s message on Christmas Eve was one of thankfulness. Head into the new year counting your blessings, he said.
“God is good – all the time,” he is fond of saying, and he says it so much, we’ve grown fond of saying it too.
In the spirit of counting our blessings, I’m happy to report that though we had a water pipe bust in the recent freeze, it didn’t do so until near the end of the family party we hosted Christmas Eve morning.
Honestly couldn’t have asked for better timing.
The timing wasn’t so good for our little Longhorn calf that decided to make his appearance into the world on the second coldest night of the year. Though her baby died, the mom, who our kids named Milkshake when we got her two months ago, is fine. Maybe she’ll get to be a mom next year.
The next day, Santa did indeed arrive Christmas morning for the Wicks. Full stockings all around, without a hint of coal.
Well, that’s all the news I’ve got as 2022 draws to a close.
Happy New Year. I have a feeling it’s going to be a good one.