There were two stories on NPR over the weekend that, while not connected in themselves, have for me a personal connection.
First, longtime NPR host Noah Adams died, aged eighty-four, just like my dad.
Second, the American Girls dolls turn forty this year, and Samantha turns twenty-five.
The connection is the Christmas of 2001. I took some photos that Christmas — six, and then I ran out of film — and five of those pictures are of my sister opening an American Girls doll. Not Samantha, but Kit.
Also, that Christmas, my mom gave me Noah Adams’ new book, Far Appalachia, about life and nature in the New River Valley.
I have a lot of books, far more books than I have shelves for, and Adams’ Far Appalachia is a book that has a place on my shelves and not in a box. I was looking at it earlier this year.
I was not aware of the connection to Christmas 2001 until today, honestly.
My sister and the American Girls doll, this has been on my mind since my dad died, as I’ve looked at those six photos, five of my sister, one of my mom and dad on Christmas morning, a number of times in recent weeks. I texted one of the photos to my sister last night, after hearing the Weekend Edition Sunday story, as I’m not sure she’d ever seen these photos.
It wasn’t until this morning that I listened to NPR’s Noah Adams tribute, and, in a strange way, I don’t think I had connected Noah Adams to his book until then. I’ve read the book, in full and in parts. But the book downplays Adams’ connection to NPR — it’s not mentioned on the cover, and he would step down as the host of All Things Considered the following year — so I knew I had a book, and I knew Noah Adams by voice, I was aware that an NPR host wrote the book, but there was no mental linkage between the two. Neal Conan and Play by Play had a stronger link in my mind, though Talk of the Nation was still a few years into the future.
I went to the bookshelf in the back room, went through the shelves, and found Adams’ Far Appalachia there. I could remember that my mom gave this to me, but I could not remember when, and there it was, an inscription for Christmas 2001.
Grief can come at you fast and unexpectedly, and it will hit you like a runaway freight train.
That’s how this morning felt. Christmas 2001 was already on my mind, the American Girls story reinforced it, and then looking for the Noah Adams book was like a final punch.
I sat down, a bit staggered.
There were other things on that roll of film, which spanned from mid-October to those six Christmas photos. The Denver airport, which I flew through on my way home from Las Vegas and the EB Games manager conferece. Tails, the Maine Coon cat with the broken tail and a bad attitude. A flock of birds blackening the sky as they few south.
So many things happened that fall, between 9-11 and the end of the year, that aren’t recorded. The Xbox launch. The GameCube launch. The store reset at Capital City Mall. The dying alternator that left me stranded in Lancaster. The day FedEx left my shipment of Final Fantasy X in Memphis. The Fellowship of the Ring, which I saw with my sister at the theater in Downingtown on Christmas Day.
Feeling a bit melancholy. For lots of reasons. These don’t even scratch the surface.
It’s been a rough day. A rough week. A rough month. A rough year.
This will pass. I have to believe that.
