December, 1964 by Rebecca Gummere

We continue with the holiday cheer through Brevity‘s Holiday Smile contest:

I am twelve now, old enough to stay up late and wait for Paw-Paw and Maw-Maw, and Maw-Maw’s brother Harry, who lives with them. It is two days before Christmas and they are traveling here to Ohio from Kentucky. My dad says Paw-Paw is a terrible driver and it is always a miracle they don’t get killed on the road.

I can’t wait to see them. Even Uncle Harry, who sometimes hugs too hard.

Uncle Harry has a cleft palate that never got fixed, because in the olden days they couldn’t, and lots of people look at him like he’s scary or something, so Paw-Paw and Maw-Maw don’t take him out much, not even to church, even though Uncle Harry likes to sing the hymns.

I don’t think he’s scary. When I visit in the summer, he will run to his room and get a dime out of his top drawer the second he hears the ice-cream truck. I will hug him to say thank you and feel the bones in his thin arms. Even though he can’t really make his mouth smile, his eyes do, and his cheeks go up and make little pillows. Then he will say something I don’t always understand, but I know it has something to do with how much he loves me.

A car door slams and the dogs start barking. In the next minute the back door opens and snow blows into the kitchen behind Paw-Paw and Maw-Maw. Then there is Uncle Harry with his teeth sticking out and his eyes all crinkled and happy.

I wave my arms and jump up and down with the dogs, and all of us are saying, “Hello, hello, hello!” in our very own way.
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Rebecca Gummere‘s work has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Crack the Spine, Alimentum, The Gettysburg Review, and The Weekly Rumpus.
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