Listen For The Whispers Of Tomorrow
Listen For The Whispers Of Tomorrow
Not All Ghost Stories Are Scary
December 10, 2018
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
"Scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago."
Who spends Christmas sitting around telling ghost stories? Who?
We do.
He is in the kitchen late on a December night baking cookies. His phone is placed above the sink and tuned into Amazon Prime, which is showing a medley of greatest moments from Andy Williams Christmas Specials from over the many years.
Mr. Williams died in 2012. His ex-wife, Claudine Longet, was convicted in 1977 of negligent homicide in the 1976 death of her boyfriend, Olympic skier Spider Sabich. Williams stood by Claudine during the trial and even paid for her lawyers even though the two had split up in 1975.
This is not a scary Christmas ghost story but it's a sad thing we think of when we watch and listen to Andy Williams, whom we miss terribly.
There should be more Christmas specials like his. Bill Murray put one together a few years ago, A Very Murray Christmas and it was, surprisingly, more charming and cuddly then raucous and funny. Much like Groundhog Day.
Christmas needs more class and charm like the good old days of Andy Williams and Johnny Mathis. Mathis is still alive, 83 years old, and it would be nice to hear from him more often.
Spider Sabich was just 31 when he died.
According to Wikipedia, Sabich is buried in northern California next to his older sister, Mary Frances Sabich, a physician who died of brain cancer in 1988 at the age of 45. His younger brother Steve died of melanoma in 2004 at age 57, shortly after the deaths of their parents.
Those last few Christmases with Steve and his parents must have been difficult with the two other children gone so young. Imagine outliving your kids. Imagine if neither you nor any of your siblings made it to the age of 60.
What we're trying to say is there really are scary ghost stories at Christmas and we tell them to each other and ourselves all the time. Christmas is a time for youth, gifts and joy but it's also a time for time. Andy Williams sang that we tell "scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago..." and those scary ghost stories are, indeed, scary ghost stories because Christmas is our most heartfelt connection with the past, and with those who aren't here this Christmas.
For Scrooge the most frightening of the Christmas ghosts was the one from the future. We all fear a possible future that brings us a Christmas when we're alone.
So what can we take from the past that will make future Christmases less worrisome?
The photos, the songs, the movies, the ornaments, the snow, the smiles, the blue glaze across the distant snow that falls across a tree and whispers not what's coming, but what is seeking to come back. --TK
Monday, December 10, 2018