Goth Chick News: A Very Bradbury Christmas
Last week’s post, about how ghosts and Yuletide have as close an association as brandy and eggnog, prompted a quantity of mail from you lot. Not surprisingly, the readers of Black Gate know all about the creepier part of the holidays. But you’re also sort of warm and gooey on the inside as well, going all sentimental on me about your own Christmas traditions.
And your emails reminded me about something I had forgotten for a very long time involving Christmas, Ray Bradbury and a ghost story.
Many years ago in the early fall, my beloved Grandfather passed away very peacefully in his sleep. Being nine, I was convinced that no one in the whole world could be more heartbroken than me; I had been my Papa’s only grandchild for most of my young life and he had made me the center of his whole world. However, though I remember my own first experience with grief, what I recall most vividly is seeing my own Dad cry over the loss of his Father. To this day it is the only time I’ve ever seen my stoic Dad shed a tear.
Back then, and until this day, Mom was an avid fan of Woman’s Day magazine. So much so that she kept and cataloged her back issues primarily for recipes but for other interesting tidbits as well. Some weeks after my Grandfather’s funeral, Mom went into her library of Woman’s Day and pulled out an issue from December, 1973. I remember her using a scrap of paper to mark a place in the magazine and leaving it on Dad’s desk for him to find.
Hi! My name’s Amal! We’ve never met. Well, unless we have. But most likely we haven’t, because I’ve never blogged here before, even though Ms. Claire Rides-the-Lightning Cooney has 
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