A Christmas Day Twist of
Fate
Joyce Benedict
©
Copyright 2021 by Joyce Benedict
|
Photo by MART
PRODUCTION at Pexels.
|
Christmas 1975. I had been separated from my second
husband for just over a year and raising my two preteen sons from a
previous marriage. The weeks before Christmas had been filled with
the usual gift buying, wrapping, baking, planning the holiday meal,
decorating, making and addressing cards, trimming the tree. Joyous
rituals done for years. I loved Christmas with its glitter, bright
colors, timeless carols.
A call came from the boys father. An
unforeseen
situation arose. Plans changed. My sons were to be
with
him not me on Christmas Day. He arrived Christmas Eve and whisked
them off to where he lived in Cold Spring, NY.
It was not until Christmas
morning it hit me.
I was alone. What a twist of fate. A slow anger
arose. How
could this happen to
me? I didn’t
deserve this!.No, not one bit. With repeated wiping
away
tears, the turkey was stuffed and put in the oven. Pies and fresh
vegetables were already prepared and potatoes were peeled to be
cooked later.
Slowly, I moved past what I felt were
justified sorrows
and picked up a book I had started reading weeks earlier. Engrossed
in my novel time passed swiftly and when the bird was done, ate my
meal alone. Tears spilled again as I silently
bemoaned the
Fickle Finger of Fate.
I do not remember just when it happened,
but I realized
slowly that though I could do little for myself that day, I could do
something for someone else. Who else was alone?
I thought for a while. Then she flashed
before me. A
woman I knew from one of my former classes, who I seldom saw, but who
I spoke on the phone with on many occasions. We had lively
conversations on a myriad of subjects. I called to see if she was
home. She was. “No Joyce, you know I do little cooking and with
mother gone, why, I haven’t bothered to cook a holiday meal at
all these five years since she passed.” I silently gave thanks
I picked the right person.” Vanesa,” I exclaimed
excitedly,” stay put, I’m coming over with some of my
wonderful turkey dinner for you. Now, don’t you go
anywhere!” She replied with a lift in her tired voice, “
I can assure you, I am going no where.”
A little trickle of joy had seeped into my
pity-pot
soul. I was to bring a healthy feast to another lonely person. I
carved huge pieces of turkey from my bird, and placed them in
aluminum containers filled with all my Christmas ‘goodies.’
An un-opened bottle of wine from
when or where I knew not, added to the festive
fare.
As I drove the twenty miles to her home to
share
my Christmas meal with her, I recalled other joyful
holidays with husbands, children, friends, family. Yet, here I was
driving alone on my most cherished of holidays to a home of a person
I hardly knew. Still, I reflected, life does indeed move in
mysterious ways.
As I pulled in front of her home I saw a
house screaming
for some tender care. Too late now to turn back. Burdened with the
heavy basket filled with food and the bottle of wine, I pushed a
rusty door bell and hoped that it worked.
I was silently shocked at Vanesa’s
appearance as
she greeted me at her door. Her long, thin, gray hair hung about her
face. A tired, forlorn look changed to a weak smile that brought a
soft glow to her face when I handed her the containers of fresh,
cooked food. She closed her eyes breathing deeply as she reveled in
the smells issuing forth. She wore a long, pale grey smocked night
gown so old and faded that it appeared to come from a previous
century. “I really didn’t think you’d come,”
she stated softly as she led me to her dining room, “ I have so
few visitors. I am just so eager to taste your wonderful food.”
As she laid some of the food bags on her
dining room
table I could see her kitchen. Inside piles of dirt and buckets of
stone filled her kitchen. She had brought her garden indoors or so it
seemed. Plants everywhere, many old and overgrown. Dark brown velvet
drapes covered her windows. I felt as though I was in a funeral
parlor without the lights on. Tons of papers and boxes piled on every
table top and piece of furniture.
What hidden forces in her mind kept her a
recluse? What
did she do all night while the world slept? Like a
bat she
shunned the light of day and came alive at night. Her sole companion,
a cat named Velvet, as deeply a lush brown as her
drapes,
followed her as we toured the old house and the piles and piles of
old things in it. Who could have foreseen where I was to be on this
Christmas Day.
While a pot of water heated on her stove’s
sole
working burner, we sat at her dining room table where a small area
was cleared amidst the mess for her daily repasts. She ate the food
with relish, but with a natural grace and dignity. Following the meal
she savored the pieces of pie brought, chewing each piece like
morsels from heaven. “You have no idea how long it has been
since I have tasted home cooked food like this. “ I
mused inwardly that she sounded almost like a contented cat purring,
the tone so smooth, mellow, lyrical, almost sensual. In her private
heaven of eating. her face had softened, appearing
younger
than when meeting me at the door.
Here I was sitting in what most would call
squalor,
trash, mess, with wild old plants wandering everywhere, yet feeling
strangely rested and content. A particularly large,
wandering, ancient succulent near me still held the remainder of a
Christmas long past, a faded green ribbon with wilted tinsel trailing
around it. I felt like I was moving through an old
grade B
movie; perhaps like Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.
She requested that I listen to some poems
she had
written long ago of flowers, trees and unrequited love. Her
voice soft sensitive, lilting. The poems beautiful.
She
seemed almost ethereal, from another time, as the last rays of sun
spotlighted her frail, frayed almost ghost-like appearance from a
nearby small window. By now it was very late. I had a long drive to
my apartment.
In silence, I then opened the bottle of
wine I brought
and toasted our humble Christmas gathering and the coming New Year.
As the wine slowly brought its kind escape from the mundane, we each
turned inward embracing visions of loved ones and of future hopes and
dreams.
I drove home that night aware that
something very
special had taken place. I felt no longer alone. The early day’s
tears, anger, self-pity but a faded memory. In its place was a
delicious tiredness and deep peace. As my bed embraced me lovingly
that night I was reminded of the closing lines of a poem by Phillip
Brooks,
“For
the Christ-child who comes is the Master of all.
No palace too great, no cottage too
small.”
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