As my fourth Christmas approached, my parents took us to a party at the Olde Wethersfield Country Club. The festivities were set up in the club’s restaurant. A wall of windows looked down on the undulating, snow-covered golf course. We lined up in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass panes, squinting into the orange glare of the low New England sun, waiting.
An antique sleigh arrived, led by two lively, dark horses. I asked my father where the reindeer were. He explained that they were resting up at the North Pole for their big trip around the world on Christmas Eve. Apparently, Santa Claus didn’t need a rest since there he was driving the sleigh.
After a while, Santa, a huge red sack slung over his shoulder, made his grand entrance through the big white double doors of the dining room. While the adults sipped cocktails and nibbled on hors d’oeuvres, we youngsters took turns sitting on the jolly elf’s lap, reciting our long lists of requests for toys and kittens and puppies. When it was my turn, I asked Santa for a Flexible Flyer sled, a horse and a dog. He asked for a kiss and I obliged, stretching up to reach his bearded cheek with my lips. Despite the beard, he smelled like my father’s Old Spice aftershave. A press photographer snapped the shutter of his camera and our picture made the front page of the local newspaper. (I don’t know if little kids still sit on Santa’s lap and I don’t suppose that any Mr. Claus who wants to keep his job would ask for a kiss from a child seated on his velvet trousers, but these were different times.)
Kris Kringle didn’t make any promises, but he listened carefully and told me to be a good little girl and he’d see what he could do on Christmas Eve. Then he reached into the sack beside him and handed over a small square package. I scrambled back over to my parents and ripped open the green and gold wrapping. Inside was a white cardboard box that contained a clear plastic ball the size of a cantaloupe. The ball was filled with water and floating in it was a smiling pink pig seated on a tiny red chair.
I named the pig Little Reddle Roger and kept him in the broom closet in the kitchen. As I didn’t get a puppy or a horse that year, I played with Roger a lot. I enjoyed watching him bounce happily along in the waves of his little liquid world. He always managed to make his way to the surface and right himself no matter how much I jostled him or rolled him down the long hardwood hallway toward the grandmother clock.
Then one day I found Roger separated from his small throne. He needed fixing and there was only one person who was up to the task. Unfortunately, when I asked my grandfather to put the pig back in his chair he explained that this was impossible. There was no way to get to Roger without destroying his transparent globe. From now on, this was how it was for Roger and he didn’t seem to mind.
Years before I was born, my Uncle Tony’s left hand was mangled in a brass mill. My father was summoned and he rushed into to the factory to find his older brother stunned and pleading for someone to collect his scattered fingers. By the time I knew my uncle, he was long accustomed to his hand with three digits missing, the remaining thumb and forefinger resembling a miniature fleshy lobster’s claw. He had learned to accept his hand’s situation in the way I would learn to accept my mother’s body after surgery had disfigured it or my dog’s when he lost his front leg or the relationships that severed when forgiveness ran out.
Little Reddle Roger taught me that things come apart and mend in different ways. Some things don’t grow back. Often we can’t even reach or gather up the splintered pieces. But somehow the universe must remain intact. Sometimes the best we can do is take a cue from a little pink pig and keep bobbing along, seeking the surface, smiling if possible, not thinking about it all too much.