It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

On Christmas Eve I attended a candlelight service at the church of my childhood. As I drove home at midnight, I was struck with the wonder and beauty of a perfectly clear star-filled sky. If I could have captured it on film it would have looked like this only BIGGER and with visible constellations brighter than I remember seeing them before.

My trip home for the holidays was an emotional one as it will be the last with my Grandma. I spent the day with her in her hospital and I knitted and visited while she lay there drifting in and out of sleep and she offered me nothing but a blank look punctuated only by the glimmer of recognition she had for my brother when he stopped to visit. She's so thin it's like looking at a different woman... now without the smiles or any physical response it's like she's already gone.

I have volumes of words to say and they were choked in my throat holding back that flood of tears that I am scared to really cry. I fear starting and never stopping. Instead I chatted about school, plans, craft projects.... I told her funny stories and I sat in silence... knitting... being there. I believe that even if she can't respond she knows we are there... at least while we are there. That she hears and may not even understand who I am or why I am there or what I am talking about... but she knows love and it's important that she is filled and surrounded with that too.

At the evening service I sat alone, missing my companion. My Gram. I sang the familiar songs and listened to the scriptures and I lit my candle from the one held by Lyla B. and got a hug with sympathetic eyes that knew as she gripped me who I was missing and what I was feeling.

After I visited Gram, I had to go to her house... empty and waiting... like she's coming back any minute even though she's been gone for more than six weeks. I had to be there to drink in her smell... to feel her... the real her. I miss her already. It was an odd holiday and it had a slightly empty worried feel, but I believe that God tried to give me a little gift. Something simple... something beautiful in that night sky.


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Update: My grandma passed away on December 30, 2006 in the wee hours of the morning.