The Light of Christmas

I have a friend I've made as a result of years of going to the same dry cleaner's.  She always greets me with a smile and a call out, even if I'm being served by someone else.  I've written of her mother, and her own unwavering faith.  Every once in a while, we have a conversation as I'm handing over my pile of laundry and the ordinariness of my day evaporates.  

"Merry Christmas," I said as I piled up the shirts.  My mind was full of the bills to pay, the pounds gained over the break, the work I needed to still get done for the evening.

"Merry Christmas!" she beamed, "You know, Christmas is a time for miracles.  Christmas time is a miracle."    I felt the beginning of an interruption in the dark chaos of my thoughts.

"Yes.  Yes it is."  Her eyes told me, she held a miracle she was bursting to share.
"For the past eight years, I've prayed."  She told me of how she's been begging for warmth in her marriage, but for years, they've not talked.  "Then on Christmas, I heard Jesus tell me, in my heart, "If you want me to work, you have to move."  and I got out of the way."  She smiled.  "I put my hand on my husband's hand."

"And it's better?" I asked.
"It's better. It's a miracle.  It started on Christmas.  It's a miracle.  You know, Jesus can take anyone, fix anything, anything we let Him!"
"The water is now wine." I smiled.  All my errands still loomed, but they didn't haunt, they couldn't in the face of her joy.

"Yes.  Exactly!  The water is now wine."

A line had cued up while we spoke.  "I'm so happy for you. Merry Christmas!"
"Happy New year!"

The Christmas star is shining at my dry cleaner's.  

Forever Feasting

People who follow this blog might know my piece from a while back, She is forever singing.  I still go to the same dry cleaner's and my friend Nemi is still there working while her mother is in a home receiving ongoing care.  My friend's mom still cannot speak, but she's lived well past the day the doctors said she'd die.

Today, I dropped off shirts and Nemi waved me over to tell me about her mother's birthday. Three days ago, her mom turned seventy-eight, and they held a feast at the home.  There were over one hundred people on the floor with gifts, with food.  The line of visitors filled the hallway.  Because the place had a piano, people took turns playing it, and the whole home echoed with the chorus of a hundred people plus staff, singing.  Singing, eating, feasting, celebrating a woman who could only tell them all "I love you." with her face.  "I know my mom knows now, she will never be forgotten, and that she is loved." Nemi said.  

The vision of one hundred people coming to celebrate a birthday in a nursing home filled my eyes with tears; this was how life should be spent, this was unbridled joy at someone being alive even if they could not "do" anything useful.   I wished I'd thought of the idea for my own dad and my heart pined for the idea of a thousand birthday parties of the same nature, where every person in the home, whether they knew it was their birthday or not, had a feast brought to them, complete with a crowd of willing singers wanting to wish with full hearts, "and many more."

Once again, I felt awe at the testimony of faith lives lived out fully, as manifested by something as ordinary as a birthday party.  "Look at how they love one another." floated into my mind.   Who wouldn't want to have a world peopled with people like this? Who wouldn't want that deep knowledge as a birthday gift; that one was loved for who one is, not for what one can or cannot do.

My friend and her family, they are salt, light and song.  Next week my son turns 22.  I hadn't planned to go nuts, he's 22.  But now, I'm thinking....he's going to have a great birthday.