Helping One Another Through the Dark
佚名 / Anonymous
Christmas has really caught me by surprise this year. I need another week to prepare. Maybe it is because it looks more like March than December. Everything is all brown and soggy.
Saturday morning I woke my husband and all the kids with loud Christmas music and made them help me. We picked up, vacuumed and mopped. My husband trimmed the tree so it would fit in the house. I wrapped it in lights, then got out my wooden Santas and lined them up on the mantel.
By the afternoon, everything looked a lot more like Christmas as I rushed out alone to a “ladies’ tea” at Paradise Cove. I walked down the long drive with my headlamp on and could see the blinking lights strung on the generator shed before I heard its hum. Inside the handmade house, our hostess had her mother’s china teacups out on the table. Candles burned in glass jars on the windowsills.
The invitation suggested we wear party hats, and about half the women did. Most of us were happy just to have made it to the tea, we were so busy, all the conversations seemed to begin with “Are you ready for Christmas?” answered by groaning nos. We even wondered out loud about what would happen if one year we simply didn’t do Christmas.
Then our hostess asked us to form a circle. She gave a speech about healing and friendship and made a toast to one woman who is thankfully back home after a season of cancer treatments outside. I felt embarrassed about my petty complaints.
Then our hostess asked us to think kind thoughts for another one of us who was recently diagnosed with cancer and will begin her “healing journey” right after Christmas. While the first smiled knowingly, the other struggled to put a brave face on. She was still in shock. So was everyone else —most of us hadn’t heard.
We were each asked to say a word of encouragement to our two friends. Our hostess, who wore a long, angelic dress, began by wishing them “love” and “hope” respectively.
I hated this kind of thing. I wanted to bolt—but as each woman spoke, I heard their words of comfort rising in the warm, flickering candlelight: “faith”, “courage”, “strength” ,
“laughter”, “peace” and “grace”. I also heard another voice, coming from someplace deep inside us and floating all around, whispering “fear not”.
Near the end of the circle, a woman wished “roses” for the first cancer patient, who grows lovely flowers in her garden, and “raspberries” for the second, the tender of a prolific berry patch.
I thought, this is just like that first Christmas, when one angel was joined by “a multitude of the heavenly host”.
I also wished I had taken the time to find a pretty hat or at least borrowed my daughter’s old prom princess tiara, which that morning I had picked up in a complaining way from the floor of her room.
Then a basket of gifts was passed around—we each had brought one to share. I unwrapped a small, spicy candle, a light to shine in the darkness. As we said goodbyes and Merry Christmases, Happy Hanukkahs, I tucked the candle in the upper pocket of my jacket, next to my heart.