To kick off the season and bring you holiday inspiration, I present my annual Christmas story.
A CHRISTMAS VISITOR
Doug stopped by to deliver his annual home-baked holiday treats. This year, tins of cookies. I smelled ginger and chocolate as we hugged in the doorway. He was also clutching a gift-wrapped package, which he snugged in the crook of his elbow. “This one has a story.”
I waved him into the house. “Nothing beats a good story.”
He sat beside me on the couch, the package balanced on his lap. “Stef collected things.” He fingered the bow on the box. “I mean, she bought stuff all year, her Christmas shopping. A little something here and there, that she knew somebody would like.”
#
Stef collected somebodies.
She and I were meditation buddies; we attended retreats together on the other side of the country, navigating airports, rushing for connecting flights, or waiting around to catch them. She chatted up strangers, her easy laugh a counterpoint to the screeching announcements overhead.
At retreat, dinner on arrival day preceded a week of silence. Of the two, dinner was longer. My nervous fork clattered too loud against my plate as I tried to recall the name attached to the almost-familiar woman sitting next to me. Stef started conversations where she’d left off six months before. She remembered which national park Cheryl’s favorite trail wound through. That Randy biked and Greg hiked. She asked Kevin how he liked the kayaking river she’d suggested.
Stef and I were walking buddies, too. Winter, summer, spring we walked the mile loop around the park, usually twice, and afterward admired each other’s gardens. She showed off a raised bed Doug had built her, where tomatoes climbed vines toward juicy tomorrows. She was the first to see the bamboo wind chimes Ben had bought for me, which he’d hung from the redbud nearest our bedroom window. I told Stef, “My grandmother had chimes hanging from the front porch.”
Stef set the bamboo in motion with a sweep of her hand. “Did they sound like this?”
Grandma’s chimes had sounded like her Singer sewing machine clacking red cotton fabric into a skirt made just for me. Grandma’s chimes had sounded like her guest room bed squeaking, “hi, welcome back” when she’d tucked me into clean sheets, my tummy full of my favorite food, surprised because I could have all I wanted.
Stef was making the chimes sing. I said, “Yeah, they sounded exactly like that.”
My chimes lost a leg in a winter storm. Ben patched them together, but March gusts blew the remains into the hereafter.
#
The friends Stef had collected took turns driving her to radiation therapy. She’d scheduled us in shifts. She chuckled through the loss of her hair. The knit cap. Remission. Relapse. Until she said, “No more, it’s time to go.” She lay in a hospital bed at home near a window overlooking her tomato plants, and each of us in turn sat beside her, held her hand, and wished her a safe journey.
#
Doug twirled the bow on the package. “After she died, I found a box of things she’d collected. I haven’t been able to open it for the past four years.” His eyes moistened. “The other day she told me, ‘Open the box, Dougie. Time to open the box.’ Then it was easy. I just did it.”
He handed the package to me. “This had your name on it.”
I was stunned. Stef had thought of me one day, while she was out and about. Had it been on one of their camping trips? In a café along a trail she and Doug had cycled?
He said, “I don’t know why this is yours. Or if it will mean anything to you. But it had your name on it. And I wrapped it.”
I didn’t want to unwrap the gift, only sit there conjuring images of Stef … in an airport, in her yard, in mine.
Then I ripped through the paper and opened the box.
“Stef.” I meant to say more, but no words came. I lifted a set of copper wind chimes from their nest of tissue paper, and held them up. Their song made more sense than anything I could say.
Doug stopped by to deliver his annual home-baked holiday treats. This year, tins of cookies. I smelled ginger and chocolate as we hugged in the doorway. He was also clutching a gift-wrapped package, which he snugged in the crook of his elbow. “This one has a story.”
I waved him into the house. “Nothing beats a good story.”
He sat beside me on the couch, the package balanced on his lap. “Stef collected things.” He fingered the bow on the box. “I mean, she bought stuff all year, her Christmas shopping. A little something here and there, that she knew somebody would like.”
#
Stef collected somebodies.
She and I were meditation buddies; we attended retreats together on the other side of the country, navigating airports, rushing for connecting flights, or waiting around to catch them. She chatted up strangers, her easy laugh a counterpoint to the screeching announcements overhead.
At retreat, dinner on arrival day preceded a week of silence. Of the two, dinner was longer. My nervous fork clattered too loud against my plate as I tried to recall the name attached to the almost-familiar woman sitting next to me. Stef started conversations where she’d left off six months before. She remembered which national park Cheryl’s favorite trail wound through. That Randy biked and Greg hiked. She asked Kevin how he liked the kayaking river she’d suggested.
Stef and I were walking buddies, too. Winter, summer, spring we walked the mile loop around the park, usually twice, and afterward admired each other’s gardens. She showed off a raised bed Doug had built her, where tomatoes climbed vines toward juicy tomorrows. She was the first to see the bamboo wind chimes Ben had bought for me, which he’d hung from the redbud nearest our bedroom window. I told Stef, “My grandmother had chimes hanging from the front porch.”
Stef set the bamboo in motion with a sweep of her hand. “Did they sound like this?”
Grandma’s chimes had sounded like her Singer sewing machine clacking red cotton fabric into a skirt made just for me. Grandma’s chimes had sounded like her guest room bed squeaking, “hi, welcome back” when she’d tucked me into clean sheets, my tummy full of my favorite food, surprised because I could have all I wanted.
Stef was making the chimes sing. I said, “Yeah, they sounded exactly like that.”
My chimes lost a leg in a winter storm. Ben patched them together, but March gusts blew the remains into the hereafter.
#
The friends Stef had collected took turns driving her to radiation therapy. She’d scheduled us in shifts. She chuckled through the loss of her hair. The knit cap. Remission. Relapse. Until she said, “No more, it’s time to go.” She lay in a hospital bed at home near a window overlooking her tomato plants, and each of us in turn sat beside her, held her hand, and wished her a safe journey.
#
Doug twirled the bow on the package. “After she died, I found a box of things she’d collected. I haven’t been able to open it for the past four years.” His eyes moistened. “The other day she told me, ‘Open the box, Dougie. Time to open the box.’ Then it was easy. I just did it.”
He handed the package to me. “This had your name on it.”
I was stunned. Stef had thought of me one day, while she was out and about. Had it been on one of their camping trips? In a café along a trail she and Doug had cycled?
He said, “I don’t know why this is yours. Or if it will mean anything to you. But it had your name on it. And I wrapped it.”
I didn’t want to unwrap the gift, only sit there conjuring images of Stef … in an airport, in her yard, in mine.
Then I ripped through the paper and opened the box.
“Stef.” I meant to say more, but no words came. I lifted a set of copper wind chimes from their nest of tissue paper, and held them up. Their song made more sense than anything I could say.