The Christmas Blessing

by VanLiere, Donna

  • • •

  I visited Meghan when Allison took Luke and Olivia home. I sat down on the side of her bed and could feel that something was wrong. She wasn’t looking at me. I reached for her hand, but she moved it onto her chest. For the last two days it felt as if she was distancing herself from me. I started to speak. “Are you . . .” She turned toward me; tears were on her face.

  “I can’t do this to you,” she said.

  “Do what?” I asked, confused.

  “I can’t put you through this again.” Tears streamed down her face now.

  “Meghan . . .”

  “You’re not going to sit around and wait for me to die like you did your mother. Nobody deserves to go through that again.” She turned her face away and I tried to turn it toward me but she resisted. “Please go, Nathan.” I turned her face with my hands and looked at her.

  “What are you talking about? Let me decide what I should or shouldn’t do.”

  “I don’t want you to come see me here. It’s too hard!” She was sobbing. Jim ran into the room and looked at us. “Daddy, please make Nathan leave.” Jim squeezed my shoulder as I walked out the door.

  I drove the hour to my dad’s. He and Gramma weren’t expecting me. Gramma was already in bed for the night. Dad made a pot of coffee and sat across the table from me. I was so tired I could have put my head on the table and slept there for the night.

  I avoided eye contact. I knew if I looked at my dad that my emotions would unravel, and I didn’t want that to happen. I held the cup between my hands and swirled the black liquid up one side and down the other.

  “How’s Meghan?” Dad asked.

  “Not good. She’s getting weaker.” I paused. Dad didn’t ask a lot of questions or offer up what my grandmother called “bubbles of hope,” a statement that is as solid as a bubble. We heard lots of them when my mother was sick: Maggie’s going to lick this, someone would say to my father, or Everything’s going to be all right, Nathan. Dad had lived long enough to know that Meghan might not be all right.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  I bit the inside of my mouth and nodded. I tried to hold back the tears. I tried to suck it up and hold it together. “She said she doesn’t want to see me again.” My voice was so small. “She said she can’t put me through it again.”

  “Can you go through it again?” Dad asked. I didn’t look up at him.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Then that’s where you need to be.” I kept my eyes on the table.

  “Dad,” I said, “do you think it’s possible to fall in love after knowing someone for only a couple of months?”

  “I fell in love with your mother the first day I met her,” he said. “So a couple of months seems long to me.”

  “I just keep wondering why I met her,” I said, squeezing the cup between my hands. “Why did I have to meet her?”

  “Because you were supposed to love her,” Dad said. His words struck me hard. Was I supposed to meet Meghan for no other reason than to love her as she died? I felt my shoulders shaking. Tears were on my face, but I was silent. Dad pulled my head into his chest and I grabbed on to him, sobbing.

  “Love her while you can,” he said, bending low to my ear. “Love her as long as you can.”

  I drove to my apartment and pulled out the letters from my mother. I glanced through them and found the one I was looking for.

  Dear Nathan,

  One day, maybe in a few months, or a few years, you’ll start to look at women (maybe a friend’s mother or someone you work with) and wonder why I couldn’t have lived to be as old as she is. You’ll wish that I could be there with you to meet a girlfriend or fix your tie on your wedding day or hold your children, but don’t dwell on the pain. Focus on the happiness that you feel on those days and the happiness that I had as your mother. If I was given another five, ten, or forty years, I don’t think I could be happier than I was during these 34 years because it’s not about how long you live but how you live and who you love and I loved you. More than you’ll ever know.

  I felt tears run down my nose and across my cheeks. I had long since resigned myself to the fact that my mother’s words would bring tears to my eyes for the rest of my life. She went on:

  The pain you feel now will help you care for others, Nathan. It will help you love them through the hardest times. Always remember that Love wins. Remember when we looked at the valley together on top of the ridge last year? Regardless of the pain or sorrow you go through in the valley, there will always be love at the end. It may be hard to walk through, but God will use your time there for good. I know He will.

  I folded the letter, slipping it back inside the envelope, and grabbed my keys.

  The ICU was quiet. Meghan had been asleep for hours. I saw Jim sitting in a chair in the waiting room; he was half-asleep. I walked toward him, and he opened his eyes when he heard my footsteps. I sat down beside him. “She can say whatever she wants, but I’m not going anywhere,” I said. Jim clapped my shoulder and rested his hand there. Sometime in the early-morning hours, we both drifted to sleep.

  I stirred when I heard a nurse on the phone giving her husband a detailed list of what to buy at the grocery store. Jim was still asleep; his neck bent back in a tortuous position. I walked to Meghan’s room and looked inside. Allison was asleep on a bed shoved against the wall. I crept inside and stood next to Meghan. She turned toward me and opened her eyes.

  “Just so you know,” I said, whispering. “I’m just as stubborn as you are, and I’m not going anywhere.” She was too tired to argue. She smiled and fell back to sleep.

  Someone was always with Meghan; sometimes two or three of us were in the room at the same time, the nurses disregarding hospital policy regarding the number of ICU visitors. “Are we driving you crazy,” Allison asked, brushing Meghan’s hair off her face. Megan smiled; she was getting too tired to sit up, let alone speak. She fell asleep and Allison and Jim slipped out of the room. They were never gone long. They would take just enough time to cry alone in the bathroom or wander the halls, hoping to find a miracle hidden in the cracks of the floor or behind a door.

  I sat beside Meghan and held her hand. Is this what it was like for my dad? Did he watch my mother sleep for hours during the last days of her life? Meghan opened her eyes and smiled. “I dreamed we were dancing again,” she said. “We were in the waiting room and it was decorated for Christmas and I was wearing a gold, silk dress this time, not some cheap doctor’s jacket.” I laughed.

  “Hey, it was all I could afford at the time.” She smiled and closed her eyes; she was dreaming again.

  Jim pulled the small, fake tree through the door and set it on a rolling cart in Meghan’s room. Olivia followed, carrying two big bags that were bigger than her, and Luke had strings of lights hanging around his neck. Jim put up his hands when he saw the look on Allison’s face.

  “No pine needles with this one,” he said. They decorated the tree while Meghan watched, and Jim hauled in a huge plastic bag filled with presents. Christmas was two days away.

  Charlie and Leslie dropped by later in the morning. Meghan pointed out a gift under the tree, and Charlie picked it up. “Open it,” she said. “It’s for you.”

  “But I don’t have anything for you,” he said. “That’s not fair.”

  “Don’t argue on Christmas Eve. Just open it.” Charlie tore the paper and pulled out several ribbons and trophies. “For my coach,” she said, watching Charlie’s eyes.

  “Why are you giving me all your trophies and ribbons?”

  “You were the one who annoyed me so much and made all those impossible demands like ‘take two more seconds off. No, I changed my mind, take ten.’” Charlie raised his eyebrows and smiled.

  “I just try to do my job.” He sat on the edge of her bed and grew quiet. “It’s coming, isn’t it?”

  “What?” Meghan asked.

  “Your Christmas miracle.”

  “I hope so,” she said.
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  “I know so,” Charlie said. Meghan smiled. Charlie so wanted to believe in miracles, wanted to be a part of one. She looked at Leslie and hoped she and Rich would one day be able to explain things to him. She pulled Charlie’s face toward hers and gave him a kiss. He wiped it off.

  “Why do you girls keep kissing me?” he said, rubbing his face.

  I didn’t know if we’d get any time alone on Christmas Day, so when Jim took Luke and Olivia home for the day and Allison slipped away to the cafeteria, I handed Meghan her gift.

  “Yours is under the tree,” she said. I found it: a small box covered with red paper.

  “Open yours first,” I said. She ran her finger under the tape and pulled at the wrapping. Her mouth opened when she saw it. “I saw it hanging in a store window.”

  I was walking toward Gunther’s Sports in my hometown to pick up some new fishing equipment for Dad’s Christmas present. It had just started to snow, and the wind had picked up, so I put my head down. I glanced up only a moment to say hello to someone in front of Wilson’s Department Store when something caught my eye in the window. I walked closer and stared. How did it get here of all places?

  I ran inside and a clerk lifted it out of the window and handed it to me. I tried to make out the name in the corner but couldn’t. I flipped it over, hoping to find the information there.

  “Who painted this?” I asked the clerk. She shrugged her shoulders. I kept staring at it. It was beautiful, painted to perfection down to the last detail: the giant oak, with snow clinging to every limb, the lake was frozen over, you could just make out footprints on the path surrounding it, and even the gazebo was there, decorated for Christmas.

  “This park is an hour away,” I said to the clerk. “Who brought this here to sell?” She shrugged again, mumbling something about how Wilson’s didn’t even sell paintings, let alone one by some unknown artist.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Meghan said, holding the painting in her hands. She arched her brows and looked at the gift in my hand. I tore into the paper and opened the small box. There was a runner’s wrist stopwatch inside. I read the card she had tucked under the bow.

  In case you can’t find someone to pace yourself with. I smiled and pulled out the watch, holding it in my hand. I leaned down and kissed her. “I found someone to pace myself with,” I said.

  It was there, in the quiet of her hospital room as she held on to a painting of the park she adored, that I told Meghan I loved her.

  On Christmas morning I watched as the Sullivans unwrapped one gift after another, and it seemed everyone, including Meghan, forgot she was ill. Jim waded through the sea of wrapping paper and pulled out the last of the gifts: coloring books that Santa left for Olivia, a remote-controlled car for Luke, and a lone gift sitting at the back of the tree with Meghan’s name on it. “One more gift,” he said, handing it to her.

  “No name on it. This one must be from Santa,” Meghan said, taking the gift from her father. She unwrapped the green foil, pulled back the tissue paper, and saw a beautiful silver frame with a stained-glass star on each side. She stared at the picture inside, one of the night sky twinkling with thousands of stars.

  “Just in case you get too busy at Stanford or Georgetown to go out and look at them,” Jim said, “you can hold this up and we’ll still be looking at them together.” Meghan smiled, holding the picture. “You’re still my star,” Jim whispered, kissing her. “You’ll always be my star.”

  Leslie Bennett drove ten-year-old Matthew to her mother and father’s house. They were supposed to spend the morning with her parents after opening gifts at their own house, but Charlie still wasn’t awake at seven and Matthew could barely contain himself; he just had to get at those presents. At seven-thirty, Leslie checked on Charlie, and he was still sound asleep. Since they could no longer take Matthew’s pleading, Leslie pulled on her coat and decided to drive Matthew to her parents’ house; at least he could open a couple of gifts there. Maybe that would appease him until Charlie woke up. Matt was already beside himself over a gift Charlie had received yesterday at the hospital.

  While Charlie was visiting Meghan, Denise had come down from pediatrics with a gift for him. His eyes lit up when he opened up an envelope with a certificate inside.

  “Good for four tickets to the WWF in August,” Charlie read, excited. “Is this real?”

  “It’s real.” Denise squeezed his arm and turned to go.

  “You didn’t have to get him anything,” Leslie said, moved by Denise’s kindness. So many of the hospital staff knew that Charlie’s medical bills had been a strain on the Bennetts and had been so kind over the years, giving him gifts on his birthday and Christmas.

  “I know he loves it. I heard it was coming, so I just had to get them.” Leslie felt a catch in her throat, but she managed to hug Denise and wish her a merry Christmas. Matthew was as excited about the gift as Charlie.

  Rich rinsed out the dishes from breakfast and started to unload the dishwasher when he heard a knock at the door. Before he could dry his hands and get to the living room, whoever had knocked was already gone. He opened the door and saw a plain white envelope sticking to the door with a large red bow attached to it. He ripped it open and pulled out one thousand dollars in cash. Rich ran into the yard and spun around in all directions, looking for a car or anyone in the street. He bolted into the house to call Leslie, and as he was telling her what happened he heard another knock at the door. He threw the phone down on the counter and ran to the door. Again, no one was there but another envelope with a bow swayed in the cold air. Rich snatched it off and ran into the yard again, spinning on his heels. He opened it and breathlessly counted another wad of money as Leslie listened. “One thousand dollars,” he shouted into the phone. Tears filled Leslie’s eyes.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Rich shouted. “I don’t know!” Then there was another rap at the door. “There’s another knock!” He threw the phone down and raced to the door, throwing it open and running to the yard before anyone could get away but again, there was no one there. He snatched the envelope from the door. His heart pounded as he picked up the phone. “It’s another envelope, Les.” His hands shook as he opened it and the money fell to the counter. “It’s more money,” he said, choking on the words. “It’s two thousand dollars.” Leslie cried on the other end. Meghan was right; Christmas was the season for miracles. There was just enough money to help them pay off bills that had accumulated over the past two months. Leslie sat down and held the phone to her ear, crying. They racked their brains trying to imagine who might have done such a thing. Everyone—people from the hospital to Charlie’s school and their neighbors—had already been so good to them. They would never know who left the money so they could thank them, but sometimes giving is all the thanks that some people ever need.

  Charlie visited Meghan in the afternoon, bringing a framed picture of the two of them together, taken after one of her cross-country meets. “I should have known the best gift would be from you,” she said, making him smile. As they talked, Meghan drifted off to sleep; Charlie looked up at me, frightened. I led him down the hall, into the waiting room.

  “It’s the medications, Charlie,” I said, trying to ease his mind. He was quiet for the longest time.

  “Do you think she’d run through the gates of Heaven? Or would that be the wrong thing to do?”

  “I think you can probably go through the gates any way you like.” He thought for a moment.

  “Then I’d definitely run through them.” He smiled, looking at me. “It’d be the only time I ever ran without having to sit down and rest.” I put my hand around his shoulder. We sat quietly, and I could hear the clock ticking on the wall in front of me. It’s strange how deafening time can be when you want it to slow down.

  Charlie waited for Meghan to wake up, then Leslie took another picture of Charlie sitting on Meghan’s bed, Meghan’s arm slung over his shoulder.

  “A
re you going to hover around my bed all day?” Meghan asked late in the afternoon. I threw my hands in the air.

  “Are you trying to get rid of me again?” She reached for my hand.

  “Please go be with your family for a while.” I sat down next to her.

  “They know I’m here.”

  “But it’s Christmas! Please go wish your grandmother a merry Christmas in person. It’s only an hour away . . . thirty minutes the way you drive. Please go see them. There’s nothing for you to do here, anyway.”

  “She’s stubborn like her mother,” Jim said. “There’s no reasoning with either one of them.” He put his hand on my back. “Why don’t you take a break and go be with your family?” Everything in me said I shouldn’t go, that I should just stay put; but Meghan was adamant.

  “You can go eat dinner with your family and be back here by ten.”

  “I’ll be back by eight.”

  “You can’t drive there, eat, open presents, and be back here by eight. Ten o’clock.”

  “Nine.” I leaned down and I kissed her. “I love you,” I said. She held my face and looked me in the eyes.

  “I love you, too. Now leave.”

  When someone you love dies on a holiday, that day’s never the same again. My father and grandmother did everything they could to make Christmas special for me and Rachel, and my memories of each Christmas are filled with lots of food and family filling the next several days with nothing but laughter and boisterous conversation. But in the middle of it all, I would catch my father holding his coffee mug and staring out the window. Even as a child I knew he was thinking of my mother. Or I could hear Gramma humming or talking to herself, but then the kitchen would grow quiet and I’d catch a glimpse of her staring at a bowl or the recipe box and I knew she was remembering working with Mom to prepare the Christmas meal. The kitchen would be silent for several minutes; then I’d hear her blowing her nose before the humming started again.

  As we grew older, Christmas became a quiet celebration. Gramma would travel to visit her two remaining children, my aunt Kathy and uncle Brian, while Dad, Rachel, and I celebrated together. Because of medical problems, Gramma hadn’t traveled the last couple of Christmases. I had hoped Meghan would be part of our celebration this year. I shook my head. I couldn’t believe I let her talk me into leaving the hospital. On the way to my father’s house, I took a turn leading to the cemetery.