The pajamas were red. That part she got right.

The rest was pretty much a bust.

This time, the title would come from her muse, Mr. Keillor. But, while his was Perfect, hers sounded much more like many others, perhaps for the first time in her own life.

Beyond piano or cello, writing was her succor. And, moments ago, clamoring to the keyboard of letters had been an act of quiet panic. Hurry, get it typed in, before you weep uncontrollably. That was the picture.

Sobbing the body needs, but the heart demands both an object and an outlet. She’d devoted hers, utterly, to someone who could not return to her love, whose ghosting absence was successfully crushing.

The reality that it had all happened on Christmas was just more proof of a level of oblivion; apparently, there were those to whom the holy observance was just another day. Or, an effective tool capable of sending one, life-draining message: I don’t. want. you.

Advice had come in droves, in direct proportion to blessing; those most blessed had the most to say. Blessing was proclaimed by the blessed. Only those who were actually in the gut-punch of bereft abandonment, these kept their advice to themselves.

The house was warm. The view, white and wondrous. The silence, frightening.

Her kitchen was stacked with boxes. Gifts, several, for the one who could not reciprocate. So many who would have felt her love had she redirected it not named among the packages. Loathing self now came to mind.

Those who got paid to define it all would say that thoughts were not us, that they may plague our heads but we’d have the power to at least subsume them. Not on Christmas Day. This day was all about feelings, and memories of feelings, and recollections of those who’d given us security and the belief that we would never be left alone. And, the best among them had encouraged us to accept that, even though we could neither see nor feel God, we were loved in ways that surpassed all human understanding.

A few of these had lived by example that to give was better, that to give all would bring not just the desires of the heart but fulfillment of every need. Her mother was one of these. She’d sacrificed her entire breath for others, pressing and plodding on until the tumor invaded the space where she formulated and articulated her thoughts and morphine carried her over while she slept. On this Christmas Day, random assignment of blessing and fulfillment felt far more believable. There was a certain clarity in this kind of logic.

Speaking of which, her body had chosen to take what it needed through the morning and into the afternoon. Like death, or coma, the merciful absence from less bearable reality was the gift of sleep. Perhaps the homeless understood.

Her heart felt homeless, today.

And now, in just a few more days, hundreds of thousands might be on the brink of being so. Responsible citizens, many with children, with no place to lay their heads. She’d been writing about her own life but, on this Christmas morning, now represented the impending innumerable.

God had spoken. Perhaps the All Knowing had chosen her to suffer these by feeling their need.

Redemption?

Might just have been right about that.

.

.

.

.

.

.

© 12/25/2020 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. Sharing permitted by blog link, exclusively. Thank you!~

littlebarefeetblog.com