WINTER
Winter is in my head, but eternal
spring is in my heart. Victor Hugo
That first winter without Carmon was
surreal. It was December. The Christmas tree was up and Santa was
planning his first solo trip. But that
part of life seemed unreal – like a dream.
What seemed like reality was the
place inside my head where it was August 28, hot as a sauna, and Carmon wasn’t
home yet. The kids and I walked through
our paces in that unreal world like programmed robots.
The only real thing that year was the
day we provided Christmas for our neighbors.
The life insurance had finally paid its due and we knew we could afford
Christmas. We were wise enough to know
that spending a lot on ourselves wouldn’t make us happy, but that spending a
little on someone else might. Shopping
for clothes and toys for each of their children brought the only real joy and
hope we knew that year. All four of the
kids were involved in making our purchases.
They all helped wrap the gifts in bright Santa paper. We waited until the neighbors left and sneaked
inside. No one ever locked their doors
in that neighborhood at that time. We
carefully put the packages under the tree and then, later that night, Beed went
to their house and rang grandpa’s jingle bells under the windows while Sess,
Tee, and Tunk shouted, “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
We couldn’t bring our family’s dad
back for a happy Christmas, but we could find a glimmer of joy in helping to
make someone else’s Christmas a happy one.
It worked.
Picture from www.freebigpictures.com
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