a christmas story

Today I want to go down, down, down. I want pour myself twelve mugs of hot chocolate and read every one of your blogs. I want to follow this thread of grief that runs through your words, like Christmas ribbon through my fingers, until I come to the end. Or the edge. Or the bottom. And when I reach it, I want to sit there, stopped, cross-legged, for a long time. I want to sit there and feel this.

I couldn't possibly. Brian is gone again, and Lilly has places to be and homework to do and food to be fed. Papers in need of editing line up stoically in my inbox, waiting their turn. Vegetables need to be cooked before they spoil, and a holiday needs to be created here. Stop. I just want to follow you down...

Yesterday I went into town to Christmas shop for people I adore. It is hard to buy little treasures for neices and nephews when my heart is full of... what? I couldn't think straight--couldn't make the list or check it twice. My heart was unavailable, and who wants to pick out something for their neices cold-bloodedly, just to get it done and out of the way? I found them a sparkly puzzle and some hairbands, and then gave up.

Feeling grief's hand on my throat, I bought myself a chocolate ice cream cone. What else could I do? Stepping out into the quiet, rainy parking lot I felt suddenly defiant and untouchable, my heart blazing with love for my baby, blazing with wrath. She is my secret. She makes me special. I love her more than anyone has ever loved. Would I love her this much if she had lived?

I skirt the edge of the lot and consider short-cutting through the underpass to the next street, but see that a cop car has parked there, blocking the way. I wonder why. In the next second, a man slips up next to me silently on his bicycle. He is wearing a tattered red windbreaker and a few days growth of beard. His eyes are unfocused. Can you spare some change?

There is no one else in the parking lot. I am no longer untouchable. No, I'm sorry, I say, and hurry away, like I was taught to when we moved from the suburbs to Manhattan when I was 11, like I was taught to do even at Christmas time. I round the corner onto the main road and pass the cop car again. I see the policeman outside the yarn store with his clipboard, taking notes. Did someone steal yarn? Weird.

I feel that burning in my heart again. I am standing at the edge of a crowd at the one big intersection in town, waiting for the light to change. I am different than these people, I think. At least, I hope I am. At once I feel both proud and totally destroyed.

Can you spare some change? The man on the bike is next to me again. Now I am pissed. We did our thing already, I'm thinking. You asked and I said no. We're done here. Don't stalk me. The light changes in that moment, and I hurry across, keeping an eye on the shop windows flashing by beside me, making sure I do not see his bike reflected, coming up the block behind me. I don't.

It starts to rain harder as I reach my car. Once I'm inside with my doors locked, I feel guilty. It is Christmas. I should have found a dollar for the guy. But like I said, my heart was unavailable. My grief was on a chocolatey streak of hubris, and my chest was on fire.

I did what I could do. At least I did not sob in the street. At least I bought someone a puzzle.

Later that evening, outside the B&N at our local strip mall, I give three quarters to the unlicensed busker who is standing in the middle of his six shopping carts singing Christmas carols a capella. I am not special. Me, the two homeless guys, and whoever just got their yarn store robbed, we were all having a shitty day. At least I can be grateful that my heart was preoccupied with love, even if it was love for someone dead.

I am still here, preoccupied. It is time to serve dinner. But I just want to sit still, on the bottom of the sea, and read sad Christmas stories while my heart burns.