YULE TIME CHEER
God’s Gift
The house stood cold, dark and fading. Red lights, attesting that life still lingered from within, twinkled bright in the large picture window of its façade. Isabel lay stiff, her right hand caressed the emptiness beside her. She had helped Adon install that window twenty some years ago. They built the house themselves, one loving board at a time, two years after their late-in-life marriage. They finished the nursery one week before Matea blessed their lives.
Matea arrived the 20th day of March at 12:34 AM, red, squirming and squalling, truly a gift. They had so many plans for her, but someone else had other plans. For three years, pale and frail, Matea endured an illness that couldn’t be fixed. In her seventh year, she was taken on the eve of Christmas day. For another seven painful years, at Yule time, she placed a solitary light in the window in remembrance.
Grief stricken and isolated, Adon threw himself into his work. On that Easter morning he lay cold beside her in their bed. For another seven years she placed two lights in the window.
This year, she did something she hadn’t done for many seasons. She opened Matea’s door, lit a fire in the fireplace, made a drink and slipped into bed after fluffing his pillow.
The next morning three lights lit up the picture window. Cold dank smoke still lingered low throughout the quiet house.
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