A Dark Christmas Tree

Sandy will be OK, coming home in a day or two. They’ll be able to treat her with meds.

We have a Christmas tree with several hundred lights. There’s a switch on the floor I can’t reach, so the tree stays off except when we have company or family who will turn it off. Nasha (our miracle survivor cat) has a place under the tree among the presents on top of the switch. She actually offed the tree once.

The unlighted tree has become a symbol for me of the house, all done up for Christmas, but without Sandy. She brings such light and beauty into the house. So while she’s away, the tree remains dark most of the time.

We’re coming up on our 39th anniversary by the grace of God. We’ve weathered storms of illness, stupidity on my part, major job change, and countless relatively minor crises. We’ve seen our son mature from a 19 year old college kid whose best qualities were just emerging to a 35 year old man who stands tall with us, a help beyond words.

This episode reminds me how fragile our life is. The outcome could have been so different. Everything could have vanished. I give thanks for God’s constant grace and mercy.

I’m also reminded of how precious are family/friends (often hard to tell the difference): the Tuesday night group, the Thursday morning pray-ers, our African family the Lindjecks and Ngues, the Kruschwitz clan, my big sister Pat, the folks at Trinity UMC, and online friends. We are surrounded not only by a great cloud of witnesses but a huddle of fellow strugglers.

In the African American churches I’ve visited, laying on of hands has taken place all together rather than one after another. I like that huge hug.

I didn’t go to the hospital. It’s cold and rainy. My pain was elevated (5/6 on ten scale), and would have spiked. Outside my station, I would have required people’s attention, who needed to focus on Sandy. So we talked by phone.

But for some years now, physical distance hasn’t mattered. We’re always together. In her last spell of serious illness I learned, love transcends geography, even physical time and life; the people you love most populate your soul space and remain close, regardless of things like separation.

I’ve a confession to make. I’ve been praying with the Virgen de Guadalupe in mind. There’s a light in the image. It’s the light of God’s love and God’s presence. For, God is with us in the darkest, shortest days of the year, a light that never goes out. Our little lights are only faint blips on the screen of eternity.

There will come a day for Sandy and me when the outcome of some illness is different. Others face such hard sad days today, and for all of you even though I don’t know you by name, I am praying. 

But no matter what, for all who have hearts to see, God is a star storm of love and light! light! light!