Not all Christmas memories are merry.
Some families go through divorce. Some deal with death. Others face abuse.
Iola Mayor Steve French, age 62, experienced all of the above.
It would take Steve years of healing, faith and grace to learn how to process his grief and create new, and healthy, holiday traditions.
“My story is not unique. I’ve come to realize that if you think your cut is bad, somebody has a gash. And if you’ve got a gash, somebody is an amputee. Somebody’s always got it worse,” he said.
“You’ve got to have something to believe in. For me, it was my faith. I have been saved by grace so many times.”
STEVE’S earliest Christmas memory, though, is magical.
He remembers walking up the steps of Iola’s Memorial Hall as a child to visit Santa. Its massive marble pillars loom large in his memory, before the iconic structure was torn down in 1970.
“You thought you were going up those steps to see a king, just like in the movies. And I remember they gave me a net bag shaped like a stocking, filled with stuff.”
But soon, when he was just 6, his parents divorced “and we got shuffled around.”
He and his siblings lived with their mother, JoAnn.
She remarried and gave birth to her sixth child. Her new husband, James P. French Sr., adopted the children “and we had joy.”
But not for long. Steve’s new father died from heart complications at age 45. The family moved from Texas back to Moran.
In his short life, Steve had experienced the effects of divorce, adoption, death, and displacement.
It was an era where adults who sought mental health treatment were stigmatized, Steve said. And mental health treatment for children was nearly unheard of.
These days, a child facing such trauma can receive counseling, for which Steve is grateful.
