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Franzen-heads, unite! I haven’t read it yet, but Jonathan Franzen–––he of 2001’s The Corrections-driven instant author fame, and of once upon a time Oprah Winfrey ire–––has come out with a new fiction novel, Crossroads, and it’s supposed to be pretty great. At least in my circles, Crossroads is the buzziest book to cross my bough in a while. It’s on my 2022 to-do list.

Two decades ago, The Corrections jump-started my ongoing journey of novel reading, and it was a banger place to begin. Among other things, The Corrections contains one of the funniest scenes I’ve ever come across in fiction, in which a down-to-his-last-dollar character named Chip is reduced to pilfering a slab of salmon from a bougie grocery store by stuffing it in his slacks and sliding out the door. Under any circumstances, fish-in-pants is always funny.

Every great novel needs a solid premise, and so it is with The Corrections. An older, midwestern matriarch, whose husband of many years has slumped into a late-stage Parkinson’s decline, seeks to regather her adult and coastal elite children back to the heartland for one last Christmas. Dramedy ensues.

When Simon and Garfunkel reunited for their Concert in Central Park in 1981, they added a new verse to their classic song, “The Boxer”: “The years are rolling by me/They are rocking evenly/I am older than I once was/And younger than I’ll be/That’s not unusual.” It’s one of my mom’s favorite songs.

Rather, it was one of my mom’s favorite songs. As Alzheimer’s disease continues to denude her memory while leaving her body behind, I doubt that she’d any longer recall the S&G tune, or at least be able to signal that she might. I’ll see her once again over the upcoming holiday, and here I am finding myself within a Franzen novel; I worry that this will be our own "one last Christmas."

Sadly–––and disquietingly to me–––Alzheimer’s tracks generationally through families. Before my mom was ravaged by this illness, it was my grandmother (her mom). I recall one Christmas where she and my grandfather spent Christmas with my family in New Orleans. By that point in time, Grandma Pauline was in that ever-dwindling “sensible but senile” stage, which not only engendered deep grief in my mom but posed practical challenges as to how to keep her occupied (and out of danger or trouble) for days on end. My mom landed on making homemade Christmas ornaments as the project that would focus and soothe Grandma. As a young boy, I’d join only for short stretches of time the sewing, stuffing, and tying of those flannel turtledoves, bells, and sleighs, but my mom and grandmother would remain at our dining room table over endless hours, saying little but stitching much.

For years, those ornaments made their annual and homely appearance on my parents’ Christmas tree. And I would remember.

My mom is far past the stage where she would still possess the dexterity and capacity to make Christmas ornaments. I wish that I had made some of them with her while we still could.

One of the ways I’ve measured the progress of my mom’s illness has been to trace the lessening of Christmas decorations in my parents’ place. Forever, it was my mom that did everything, from the tree to the tinsel, holiday tchotchkes to gingerbread cookies. Gradually as the Alzheimer’s increased, my dad assumed decorating duties–––until the last couple of years, when around the clock care for my mom has occluded any decking of the halls. (Erich Segal won’t be writing about it, but a strange gift from my mom’s illness is that I’ve been witness to a love story for the ages, as my dad has served my mom deep into her senescence.)

I’m not sure if my dad will put up a tree this year, which means that I may not see the old ornaments.

But I’ll still remember.

Every Sunday in churches around the world, Christians will confess in the words of the Apostles’ Creed that because of Jesus, “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” I’ll pour one out this year, with creedal conviction, for the resurrection of the mind as well.

I’ll catch you later, Mommy. Merry Christmas.

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