The Ghost of Christmas Past

This morning, we trimmed the tree. The house glows soft with twinkling light. Outside, fat flakes dress the earth in threads of white. In the plum tree--a flash of red—cardinal in a nest of snow. I watch from the window, my feet planted in warm.

It’s quiet—quiet here, quiet inside the walls of me. I touch the moment gently—feel around inside my heart.

Is this how it feels, I wonder?

My dad called to say he is half way through his treatments. He thought I should know he’s doing fine. Yes, I thought. I should. I should know that. He wants to tell me something else, but I already know. And he says, she’s so young. It’s too young to start a family. But maybe they’ll be ok.

You and mom were younger than they, I whisper. And I immediately regret the words. After all, that didn’t work out so well, did it? He says nothing, just brushes it off. And then the connection goes bad and I say goodbye loudly so he can hear.

I love you, I say. And the words echo silence.

The snow that piles in the eaves where branches meet reminds me of home. There is a great open field between me and that place now and today it is blanketed in snow. The cries of the past are muffled by this insulation and I don’t even think about the what-ifs. Sometimes it is a hole inside of me and I feel broken with it gaping wide. But today—I remember how beautiful the snow slept in the trees of my childhood home. This quiet as the snow drifts silently down.

This must be, I think. This must be peace.

The water that has passed under the bridge is frozen and the light in the sky fades fast. But this shimmer—this glimmer--stays inside of me.

Let it shine, I pray. Let it shine.