On the sending of Christmas cards

But I was anything but profligate. I bought cards only in boxes whose prices were discounted. When I began, I limited myself to cards that, averaged out, cost no more than a dime. Eventually, influenced by inflation and increased earnings, I worked up to a quarter. I was disciplined in my message, too. “Christmas” was out, but “Peace” was fine. Snowy owls and polar bear cubs from the Sierra Club were also favored.

In 40 years of practice, I had over 2,000 clients. Only four (two who are a couple) send me cards now, in my fourth year of retirement. One is a self-reliant Spanish woman, whom I represented in her divorce from a master sergeant when I was starting out. Now 82, she keeps me up to date on two adult children I have never met. Of the couple, the woman is a gentle soul from China; her partner is a white-bearded, Zorba-esque Greek. I represented both for industrial accidents.

The fourth fellow, a carpenter/laborer from West Oakland, had several claims: the last, while ultimately successful, was defended by allegations of his fraud and general rascality and became the most bitterly litigated case I ever handled. It was not his most significant case however. That, after his DNA showed up in a Cadillac trunk upon a woman’s dead body, left him serving life in a penitentiary, from which his cards, wishing my continued good health, reach me.

Everybody needs friends

Though we may not have sat face-to-face in 45 years, I score better with friends. Cards come from those I met in kindergarten, played ball with in high school, made social probation with in college, turned on to the Mothers of Invention with during law school, walked beside down South Side Chicago’s mean streets while in VISTA. Some carry personal notes; others bare semi-varied recitations of the year’s events. Grandchildren have been added to children to account for. Travels have extended into further corners of the globe. Fortune and fate have continued to cast dies. Two widows have stepped into their husband’s shoes as my correspondents.

One of this year’s batch opened to news of an aortic valve replacement. The next announced a triple bypass — and the dissolution of a marriage after four-decades. (I feared what the third in that delivery might bring, but it was only a real estate agent hoping to position herself in Adele’s and my thoughts until it became our time to move on.)

I no longer send cards to deflect anger although, God knows, it would be reasonable to expect anger spewing from some cards sent to me. Instead, humor and goodwill cloak the darkest tidings. Self-selection may keep those consumed by rage from reaching for pen and envelope, but by this point in our lives, even the most fortunate among us has known diminishment and loss.

So our continued postings seem to reaffirm our connections as stands against these ravages, even if no more enduring than sand castles confronting tides. Our recalled games and dances, for moments, staunch the flow from porous valves and fill the vacant shoes of ghosts.