Katherine Stickroth

I have a faded color photo of a Christmas tree with gobs of wrapped presents underneath. Far more presents than my poor parents could afford.

Christmas had been approaching for my parents and their five children ages 3 and younger. An unexpected pair of twin girls had been born three months earlier. In the first week of December 1960, one of the babies died of SIDS. How did my parents provide that kind of a Christmas for us that year with such a tragedy on their shoulders?

They didn’t.

It was our neighbors who came through. We lived in a cookie-cutter neighborhood outside of Washington D.C. — houses looked the same, working fathers wore the same dark suits, stay-at-home mothers wore Jackie O. look-alike sweaters. In the evenings parents would gather for cocktails at each other’s homes while their children played dodge ball in the street, and at other times had crabapple wars — all the same.

What wasn’t the same is that at my parents’ darkest hour other families made sure my younger siblings and I had a Christmas. It wasn’t that it would have mattered to us children. We were young enough to have gone through Christmas and not known whether Santa came or not.

Those neighbors simply did the right thing, and their kindness gave my parents hope that someone cared about them. Though I wasn’t aware of this circumstance at the time, holding this photo impacts me today.

I listen to people I care about in despair about the election results, who see no hope with the new president-elect. And while I have my own opinions about these times at hand, I truly believe it’s all going to work out.

It’s out of my hands, really. So rather than going global with my musings, I bring it back home, back to Wallowa County. I had never seen how interdependence works until I moved here. How independent people with polarizing political beliefs will together make sure an elderly neighbor has enough firewood to stay warm. Not government agencies, but people helping people. I see mysterious bags of groceries appearing on the steps of a home where the father has just lost his job. No SNAP card can do that.

Soon after I moved here, I was commenting to a new friend how generous Wallowa Countians are. She laughed, “We may talk about you behind your back, but by God, if you need something, we’ll be the first ones to help you.” I smiled all the way home, “If that isn’t a picture of the human condition …”

We can be so imperfect, but when it comes right down to it, I believe there is goodness in each of us. The worst alcoholic can have a moment of holding the door open for someone. A homeless woman will share one of her few crackers with a stray cat that tags along.

The most unlikely of people can do extraordinary things. Whether it’s the story of kindness and generosity in a faded Christmas photo, or the story of an unlikely mother, in an unlikely stable, having an unlikely son who brings peace on earth and goodwill toward all — however it’s told, I believe hope is still with us.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Katherine Stickroth is a freelance writer and blogs at awallowagal.com.