Mistletoe, swamp maples, and love from another world

I drove past Randy Burton’s house on Savannah Road in Lewes Wednesday morning and thought about his call to me about mistletoe. But it was just after 8 a.m., Lloyd’s had just opened and I needed a quick fix of sausage and eggs. They’re part of a special diet to address bacterial overgrowth in my small intestine. Too much fermentation. Microvilli on strike. Forget the grains and dairy for a while. Meat, eggs, nuts and seeds, and a little vodka now and then. Clear spirits.

It’s all working. Less fermentation. Happier microvilli.

I made quick work of my pickups and plopped the eggs, sausage and four lemons on the checkout counter. No one was at the register. But I’m mouthy. Forget that the store had only had its lights on for five minutes.

“Hey. Let’s look alive. Paying customer here.”

Donna came around the corner.

“What’s your hurry? You’re retired.”

In England I think they call that cheeky.

“Retired? I’m not retired. I’m still working full time. What’s the point of retiring?”

(Maybe it just looks like I should be retired.)

Donna kept the conversation going.

“I retired once. Now I’m working again.”

“Where did you work before?”

“For the state. In Dover. Office of budget and finance. It was scary.”

“Well, I’m glad to know someone was up there with common sense.”

Just about that time Lloyd came walking up the aisle between the frozen foods and bread.

“You talking about me?” he said.

Timing was perfect.

We laughed. A good start for the day. Like Dr. Gohel says, let’s make every day better than the one before. Moments like that help.

Back to Randy and mistletoe

He left me a message on my phone two nights back.

“Dennis, an amazing thing has happened. I think I’ve received a Christmas message from my brother Skipper.”

He went on to talk about going through his Christmas lights ritual the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Born and bred in Lewes, Randy lives on a property with a strong sense of place. The Belgian blocks of what appears to be a four-square house are of the same vintage as those fashioned by one of the elder Beebes for Drs. James and Richard Beebe’s first hospital structure down the street. Then there’s the mature swamp maples in the front yard. They’re as native as you can get in these parts, the same as the tall and stately trees that give Stango Park its shady canopy.

At Christmastime, Randy celebrates the season by lighting up the place like a theater on Broadway.

“So, as I was getting underway with the lights, something made me look up into the branches of one of the trees. And there it was. A big healthy clump of mistletoe. I’ve lived here for six years, and this is the first Christmas there’s ever been mistletoe in any of my trees. I don’t mean to get dramatic, but seeing that mistletoe gave me chills and goosebumps.”

Skipper and their other brother Bruce made gathering mistletoe a holiday tradition. “Skipper would put sprigs together and sell them; or, if he was flush with cash, he’d just give them away. Lots of times they’d go up the Broadkill and gather mistletoe from trees along the river. Baskets and bags of it. Something special.”

Skipper died on Nov. 14, 2015; too young, but lots of times God has other plans.

“It was almost exactly a year after his death when I noticed the mistletoe in the tree,” said Randy. “I can’t help but think it’s Skipper sending me a message.”

The ancient Druids revered their mistletoe and their trees. Probably because it’s one of the first plants that blooms after the winter solstice, the most important of all pagan holidays and the underpinning of Christmas. With its kissing tradition too, mistletoe has a strong and visceral relationship with love.

In this case, for the Burton boys, the Christmas 2016 appearance of mistletoe, with its waxy green leaves and white berries, in the branches of a swamp maple is all about brotherly love.