Christmas Memories
A Christmas decades ago:
As I sit here by the fire and tree this morning waiting for all the family to stir, I've just re-read A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote—one of my Christmas traditions. It is his story of growing up in rural Alabama with his distant elderly cousins, particularly Miss Sook Faulk who refers to him as 'Buddy'. Miss Sook reminds me of my own grandmothers, Birdie and Martha. Neither had much formal education. Both had lives that had dealt them hardship more than once, but these 'simple' women taught me the most about life--more than my 'higher' education. This excerpt never fails to deeply move me. The scene is the lower pasture below their house where they are flying their homemade kites on Christmas morning. Queenie, their orange and white terrier is nearby:
"My, how foolish I am!" my friend cries, suddenly alert, like a woman remembering too late she has biscuits in the oven. "You know what I've always thought?" she asks in a tone of discovery, and not smiling at me but at a point beyond. "I've always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist window: pretty as colored glass with the sun pouring through, such a shine you don't know it's getting dark. And it's been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feelings. But I'll wager it never happens. I'll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are"---her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass and Queenie pawing the earth over her bone---"just what they've always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes."
Soon the family will all crawl out of their beds—the kids will beg to open gifts, and another Christmas Day will commence--pretty as a Baptist window.
Am very grateful for Christmas memories—my own, and those of others.