The holiday season is so much about memory, remembering times past, good or bad, and creating memories for the future. I’ve asked people recently what their clearest memories are of holidays past and to a one they have recounted a particular event, a time when things went really well or really wrong. They haven’t talked about presents or decorations or even food, they’ve talked about people and relationships and often music. It’s worth remembering as we’re whipped into a frenzy of getting and spending: what we are apt to remember are small crystal moments of meaning.
When one of our daughters was in 5th grade, a classmate’s mother got cancer. The family was not well off, in fact, they were very poor. Their one room house was divided into smaller rooms by hanging sheets. The mother lay on a mattress on the floor in the far corner of the little house, with the wind blowing through thin clapboards at her back. A sawed off Clorox bottle served as her emesis basin. I don’t recall if there was plumbing, I doubt there was. But she was a deeply devoted and loving mother to her children and her looming death was heartbreaking to the small community.
One Friday afternoon in December, a group of the 5th graders and some parents headed out into the hills and the village for their annual Christmas caroling event. The kids were bundled into a caravan of cars that stopped at various houses and gathering spots in town. The last house on the list was that one room home where a mother was weathering her last Christmas season.
By the time we arrived it was dark and snow had begun falling. Two of the kids padded up the front stairs and knocked on the door with mittened paws. The outside light went on and their classmate opened the door - somewhat hesitantly - and then a huge grin spread across his face. He told the boys to wait and retreated into the house. The gathered carolers began singing their prescribed songs as the snow fluttered gently down, illuminated by the light. And just when we began to sing “Silent Night,” the door opened again and she came out in slippers and wrapped in a blanket, with her son’s arm around her. She was smiling and looked for all the world like some holy mother from long ago.
One by one the adult voices faded away; it’s hard to sing with a lump in your throat. But the kids kept on, repeating the final verse two extra times. When they were done, they just stood silently in the snow and waved slowly to their friend and his mom.
We had to pull them into the cars, so reluctant were they to leave what was clearly for them - and for us - a crystal moment in time.
