“Joe’s gone.”

And with those simple words, so was Christmas.

My mother stood for a moment, pecan pie in hand, on the back porch of Aunt Mary’s old house. Then she stepped into the brightly lighted kitchen, into the vortex of sobbing sisters.

Being a kid, I didn’t realize it at the time, but Christmas would never be the same in our extended family.

Joe was the younger brother who always traveled from far away to be with his five sisters at Christmas. He lived in Norfolk, Va., and he always brought a sack of clams and Smithfield hams.

The sisters doted on their only brother. He was, in family lore, a boy wizard, the mechanical genius who became the Navy’s top refrigeration mechanic during World War II. He would fix the giant freezers on the warships, even as the ships were turned around and headed out to sea.

He had been dead for several days when they found him on the floor of his home where he was living alone after a bitter divorce. The phone was dangling next to his body.

The details simply compounded the grief. It was the divorce from the evil wife that killed him. No, it was the stress of his job. No, it was the loneliness. No, it was the alcohol. No, it was paying for that big house. No, it was carrying those heavy toolboxes. No, it was living far away from family.

In the end, it didn’t matter. Like they said, he was gone.

And he took that big, joyous, uninhibited Christmas-Eve party with him. Invariably, even years later, somebody would point out that the ordinary grocery store ham couldn’t compare to the ones Joe used to bring.

That place at the head of the table, the honored place where the traveling brother always sat, seemed empty without Joe in that chair.

The post-dinner word games would remind the sisters of the way Joe used to laugh out loud at even the most inane remarks.

The kitchen conversation would drift to how the evil ex-wife hadn’t sent Christmas cards to the family this year, or how she discouraged Joe’s children from writing.

And thus grew the family myth: Tragedy often strikes at Christmas. Be careful. Stay on your toes.

Of course, there probably never was any real evidence for the idea. But it was repeated over and over in my family until it gained a life of its own. And, as the years went by and infirmity set in among the sisters, there seemed to be evidence enough. People were in nursing homes at Christmas. Somebody did have a stroke. Somebody did get laid off or their business failed.

Thus the myth became a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Which is why, perhaps, I feel especially pained by the deaths we report on at this time of year.

The beautiful young Auburn woman killed on the way home from college. The two Maine soldiers killed in Iraq. At any time of year, unexpected death is tragic enough. At this time of year, death seems especially cruel.

And, as we age, we no doubt collect those Christmas scars. We remember the people who were once here and who are now gone. The friendships that were once strong and are now broken. The people we know who have drifted away because of circumstances or choice. The bitterness that divides us from people we once loved, or the angry words that were hurled in haste and then stuck forever.

As an adult, there’s certainly joy in the holiday, but it can be bittersweet, too. And there’s the inherent sadness of the song we all know so well, about old acquaintances not quite forgotten.

And there’s the added pressure of knowing that the script calls for smiles and happiness all around, even when we don’t feel very happy. It’s the compounded sadness of knowing how things are supposed to be, even when they are not.

So, we hold the people who are here and now. Maybe we hold them harder than they might expect. Because we know that life is precious, and far too fleeting.

Rex Rhoades is executive editor of the Sun Journal. Readers should know that his opinions – like those of all columnists on these pages – are not intended to reflect those of the newspaper’s owners, employees or carriers. E-mail him at: [email protected].