As his father faces a cancer fight, a son holds tight to a shining holiday tradition | Opinion

Back in July, we decided to remove the rose bushes in our front yard and replace them with boxwoods.

Not long after, my first thought, of all things, was this: What would this mean for our Christmas lights?

That’s how my mind works. I’m a fanatic when it comes to Christmas and everything it entails — the music, traditions, and lights. I’m certainly blessed to have had a wonderful family who’ve shaped that space in my heart, but my father modeled the way, and I’m so very grateful he did. And of all the wonderful Christmas traditions he has etched into my brain, those colorful Christmas bulbs sit atop the list.

I was 10 when my younger brother and I really got involved with helping my father decorate the house for Christmas every year. Not unlike Rusty’s character in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, we were tasked with checking every bulb before the time came to put them up. My father used to record Christmas radio shows over time and save the tapes so he could play them when we would decorate in the years that followed. We’d hear old WIP and KYW radio voices from the late ‘70s talk about chilly forecasts of snow on Christmas Eve and wished for the same thing that year for our Christmas. We’d hold the ladder for my Dad for the bigger trees, and then we’d come in to eat dinner. A football game was playing on TV in the background, and my mother’s chicken pastina soup was on the stove waiting for us.

And, oh, the songs. Percy Faith’s “Silver Bells” was my Grandpop Phil’s favorite Christmas song. And because it was, it became my father’s favorite Christmas song. And so it became my favorite Christmas song, even ahead of Nat King Cole’s “Christmas Song” and Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas.” It hits me that deeply.

And as much as anything, those bulbs really hit me, too. They’ve come to mean even more over the last two-and-a-half years.

Back in May of 2019, my father was diagnosed with a rare sarcoma cancer. The doctors did an initial round of chemotherapy and radiation, and as we understood it, the hope was that they could treat it as needed if it came back in the future.

But around Labor Day four months later, scans revealed it was more serious than they had originally thought. It had gotten into his bones, and my father would soon be undergoing regular chemotherapy treatments.

It’s “treatable, not curable,” they told him. It will never go into remission. It was gutting and unfair, as millions of others know about this awful disease, but my father has fought it bravely over the last 27 months with the same courage and stubborn determination I’ve always known. When the time came for another round of chemotherapy, he usually replied with the same three words to his oncologist:

“Bring it on.”

I don’t know how he does it.

He’s taking a break from chemo now to give his body time to heal. We know what he’s up against, but we’re hoping and praying for more memories, more time.

These past two years, I know he’s been so scared and feared that Christmas would be his last, and I know that thought will cross his mind and ours this year. It’s only natural.

“These past two years, I know he’s been so scared and feared that Christmas would be his last, and I know that thought will cross his mind and ours this year. It’s only natural.”

But he’s here today, and we’re so very grateful for that. A couple of weeks ago, he said he was feeling well enough to put up the lights outside back home in Downingtown. He could get to most of them on his own, but I told him I wanted to help him.

As it got darker last Friday evening, we went to work on stringing the last three light sets. We played Christmas music as we always do, though on this occasion it came from my iPhone, a departure from the cassette player we used in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Not long before we wrapped up, Frank Sinatra’s “Whatever Happened to Christmas” came on, and I started to think of how that song always made me sentimental and sad over the years.

Remember the sight … and the smell … and the sound …

I looked over at my father, and we were on the same page.

“This song’s always a real tear-jerker,” he said as his eyes welled up and his voice cracked. I walked over and gave him a big hug and didn’t let go for quite a while.

We’re told growing up that traditions are important. You’ll want to carry them on when you grow up, people tell you. They can bring you great happiness. They can carry you through grief. They can sustain memories.

I’m learning all of that’s true. When you can feel it as deeply as I am now, just by thinking of a strand of lights, that’s a gift.

“You’ll keep the tradition going,” my father said to me as we headed inside for dinner.

Of course I will, Dad. I promise.

John DiCarlo is the managing director of student media, an adjunct journalism instructor, and the codirector of the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication.