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December

28

2009
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A Christmas Memory of Eddie

A Memory of Eddie K Au by Fleming Au

A few days have passed since Christmas and it's obviously a time of year when we feel the loss of Eddie even greater.  A way I attempt to fill this void is by remembering some past Christmas memories of Eddie. 

One that sticks out the most in my mind is when Eddie and I were probably about 13 and 10, respectively.  It was a couple of days before Christmas and our family had placed all the wrapped gifts underneath the "tree".  It was really our old entertainment center, with our parents' plants placed on top (our regular Christmas tree spot was recently taken up by our round wooden table at this point, so we made do with what we had).

Eddie's curiosity and mischievousness always got the better of him and this day was not going to be any different.  He saw the gifts, found the ones addressed to him, and he proceeded to, ever so delicately, pull the tape off the sides then the top center.  When it was fully unraveled, he had exposed his brand new microscope kit given to him by Danny, May and Jimmy.  I think he even opened it up and played with it for a bit.  And now, this memory is a bit vague, but I believe he either turned to me and asked if I wanted him to help me open mine as well, I asked him to open it for me, or he was so anxious to see what I got that he just went ahead and delicately opened my gift without even asking me.  Either way, I remember I received a star map projector that explained the constellations.

Eddie and I were both very happy with our gifts.  And the fact it was opened secretly ahead of schedule somehow added to the excitement.  Eddie proceeded to seal the gifts back up with no sign of it ever being opened.  When Christmas day came, we opened the gifts up with just as much enthusiam as if we were seeing the gifts for the first time.

Does anyone else have any fond Christmas memories of Eddie?

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3 Comments

  • Yes, Christmas time and the entire week that followed was when Eddie would be home. The entire family would be together and mom would say, “My three sons are home.” I would spend Christmas night at mom and dad’s. It was an opportunity for Eddie and me to catch up on events which happened in our lives, to discuss ideas we had, and to simply gossip. It would carry into the late evening when everyone else was asleep since we would bunked in the same bed (like the TV show “The Waltons”) as I had already given up my bedroom when I moved out. Those moments will always be remembered and have been severely missed the last four years.

    For a much earlier Christmas memory, Fleming reminded me not too long ago of our “Charlie Brown” X-mas tree. During one year I didn’t want to set up the old plastic white tree mom had bought years ago but came across an idea of using long thin branches for a tree when I saw city workers cutting tree branches in Montrose Park a week earlier. The three of us drove to the park late afternoon. It was really cold but no snow. We picked out branches we thought would have potential to be part of a tree. I remember it took us some time before we had a bunch of them to take home. For the base we used a large ceramic pot which I had to make a big enough hole at the bottom to insert the branches. We arranged the branches several times before we were satisfied in the way it looked. As Fleming mentioned in his Christmas memory about the presents the tree was set on top of the little wooden entertainment unit. Lights and ornaments were hung on the branches. We stood back and looked at our strange tree. It was definitely different but we were glad it was not like other trees and we began to like it more and more. During the day our tree of branches didn’t look like much but when it got dark and the lights were turned on and shining against the ornaments it looked really special.

    Posted Mon, 12/28/09 3:02 PM by Danny Au

  • Hmm this may actually coincide with my story above.  That's probably why we also decided to put the gifts in the entertainment center.

    I remember Eddie and I had a slight argument of who, amongst the two of us, contributed more to the tree as well. We both agreed Danny had come up with the idea, so he gets a majority of the credit.  Eddie said he contributed more than me because he picked out the tree/branch.  But I said I did because I came up with the idea to flip the pot upside down to keep the tree/branch more stable.  Then Danny intervened and said we all equally contributed because without each of our ideas, the tree wouldn't be complete. 

    So, yeah, I guess this really was like a Charlie Brown/Walton Christmas.  I'm sure Eddie would grimace at me for saying that.

    Posted Mon, 12/28/09 3:25 PM by Fleming Au

  • He might grimace but nonetheless he would agree it was something most families; or brothers for that matter, don't normally do together. We enjoyed it and he liked to be creative when there's an opportunity.

    Posted Mon, 12/28/09 4:10 PM by Danny Au

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