How $5 Made Me Find the Christmas Magic

My family calls me McJingle, the Queen of Christmas.

I have a perfectly lined out set of traditions that we enjoy each year that always result in the Perfect Christmas. My home is decorated from top to bottom in all things sparkly, festive, and pine scented. Throughout the glorious month of December I don't watch movies or listen to music that does not have Christmas cheer!

While -thank goodness- my family still loves me for it, sometimes I do tend to go a little overboard. Loads of gifts (never adhering to our set price limit), soooo many desserts, too many events scheduled on one night... but at the end of each year I think that certain Christmas has always topped the last.

While I've only ever had the most wonderful of Christmases, a few special Christmases still stick out in my mind. I've been thinking lately about why and how those Christmases managed to have an extra abundance of Christmas magic despite following our same set of traditions to the letter of the law. I have realized it is because on those Christmases we were blessed with something unexpected, something we didn't plan or organize. They were Christmases that were blessed by opportunities to serve, or to be served. Usually the most marvelous of Christmases have come from a place of meekness, humility, and love. Not lavish decorations or overspending. This month, each night I have prayed that I would feel the full extent of Christmas magic this glorious season.

This morning I decided to go and buy some more gifts that I had my eye on. I wanted my nieces and nephew's eyes to be full of wonder when they opened my gifts and I didn't think I got them enough yet. I already bought my husband some nice gifts but I love watching him open presents so much I realized I needed to get him more or else he would be done unwrapping too soon. I wanted another shade of Gold wrapping paper. I wanted get another Ugly Christmas sweater to top last year's. So much magic to create and only nine days until Christmas Eve!

I had conquered four stores and my front and back seats were full of sacks of Christmas joy. It was easy to quickly spend what I had spent months saving. The only thing left on my list was to find another Ugly Christmas sweater so I drove to Bountiful to go to the second hand store.

I walked in and went straight to the Christmas aisle. I was digging through so much junk that I didn't even notice the older woman beside me doing the same.

"So many wonderful treasures to look at isn't there?" I looked up from where I was squatting to see her smiling kindly at me with her straight white hair and worn coat. "Are you looking for anything special? There are some beautiful cookie tins down there for only a quarter!"

I glanced down the aisle and didn't know what to say. I didn't want to tell her I was here looking for something hilariously hideous when she was having so much fun finding treasures.

"Oh I'm pretty set on cookie tins, but thank you!" I replied and then glanced in her cart to see if she had gotten any tins. The only item she had in there was a red, silver, and green shining 2 foot tall Christmas tree made from stacked glued together ornaments. "That's a very good find though!" I pointed to her cart. "That's really pretty."

She smiled and ever so gently lifted the tree and twirled it around for me to admire. "Oh isn't it?" She breathed. I noticed some ornaments were cracked and a few others were coming unglued but she was looking at it like it was the most beautiful thing she had seen.

 "I'm putting it on my Abigail's grave." Her voice was hushed as she stared at the glittering bulbs. Her eyes seemed to hold many memories behind them as she gazed. "I think it's shiny enough that she will see it when she looks down from Heaven."

I felt timid and didn't know what to say. "Oh. I think it's plenty shiny to be seen. She will love it." I swallowed hard.

"It's only fifty cents too!" She put it carefully back into her cart. "That means I can afford it."

I smiled at her and nodded and turned away. I wandered through the aisles and passed her a few times, still nothing else in her cart but that tree. A few minutes later I headed to the check out stands. The lady in front of me was chatting with the two woman cashiers. When I leaned passed her, I saw that on the checkout stand was the ornament tree! I wondered if maybe the older woman I met had found something else and put it back. I figured the lady in front of me must have found it and bought it, but as she paid the cashier and gathered her bags, the tree was still there. When the automatic doors opened to let her out I saw the white haired lady walking to her car with her hands empty.

"Excuse me," I said quickly to the cashier. "Do you know why that woman who had the tree decided not to buy it? I know she really wanted it to put on her daughter's grave."

The clerk looked confused as she followed my gaze to the woman getting in her car. "Oh, she brought it up here to buy it and thought it was fifty cents but it was really $5.00." She turned and showed me the tag. "She didn't have enough."

"Will you ring this up with my stuff? I'd like to get it for her." I reached in my purse and slammed down some cash on the counter and grabbed the tree and ran through the doors. I saw her in her car with her face in her hands. She was massaging her temples with her thumbs dejectedly. My heart started to pound as I jogged to her and I suddenly felt very shy.

I tapped on her window and she looked up with a start and opened the door.

"Hi." I said nervously, "I think this tree is really beautiful and I think it needs to be on your daughter's grave so she can see it from Heaven."

The woman fumbled. "Oh well I thought it was fifty cents and I got to the register and it was $5.00. That's more than I have. It was so expensive."

My legs went numb. "It is expensive, but I think it is worth it and it would make me very happy to give it to you." I thrust it into her hands.

I will never forget her sweet face shining with tears as she clutched the worn tree to her chest and looked at me. "Thank you Angel, thank you."

I could only choke out "Merry Christmas" and turn before she could see me cry. I felt my heart bursting with both sadness and joy. I ran back inside to finish my purchase. I looked up to see a few workers had been watching from the window, both with tears in their eyes.

The woman blinked very fast as she bagged my things. "That was something else." The other woman patted her chest and said, "You don't understand the wonderful Christmas memory you have left me with today." I smiled a watery smile at them and left the store.

I felt so warm. This was it, this was true Christmas Magic. I could feel it! I didn't come from hundreds of dollars worth of gifts sitting in the backseat. It didn't come from matching wrapping paper. How caught up I had been in all of the wrong Christmas ideals! What a small amount of money to make me feel this way!

I suddenly felt so blessed and so loved. Any of us would have given the five dollars so the woman could buy her gift. This story is not about me, or about the simple $5. The act itself was not miraculous. The true miracle was being at the right place at the right time and being given such a precious moment of love and humility and true Christmas joy. Our father in Heaven is so mindful of us. He knows our hearts and blesses us with such opportunities to feel of that Christ-like love. He knows how much I adore this time of year, and I know that today he gave me this moment as a gentle reminder about why I love it.

I don't think giving gifts is wrong. I find so much happiness in watching others open my gifts for them, but I do think the truest gifts are not just from Best Buy. The best gifts are ones that remind others of your love for them. Just like the sweet white haired lady would have given all of her $5.00 to remind her daughter of her love at Christmas time, her gift was the greatest because she truly was giving all she had to give.

This makes me think of the Widow's Mite and our Savior. When we give all we have to give, it is truly enough. Thanks to his mercy and grace, we will never find ourselves short. Do we give enough? Do we serve enough? Do we give all we have to our Lord so that our gifts are the most precious to him? What perfect gift can I give my Savior this year?

This morning I felt it in my heart and I never wanted to let go. TRUE CHRISTMAS MAGIC. What an invaluable gift I was given through such a simple act. Christmas may be filled with all things sparkly and ornate and lavish, but underneath it all, the true magic began in a lowly stable on a starry night. It began with humility, meekness, and tremendous love.

With Love,
---McJingle

October 11th Should Have Been a Special Day...

Have you ever had a day you were so excited for that you will never forget that specific date? In middle school, two of my best friends, Kaitlyn and Melany, and I were planning the most epic sleep over. May 3rd. We cleared it with our parents and it was a date we kept saying over and over. And now, thirteen years later, I still remember it.

October 11th, I'll never forget this date.

We were on our way out for a date, my husband patiently (ha) waiting for me on the porch with his keys in the door. Despite feeling really tired the last few days, I spruced myself up a bit and threw on a glitzy necklace and some heels. I ran back inside because I had forgotten my bright red lipstick and let's face it, it's very hard to feel hot without it. I flung open the hall closet door and there thrown haphazardly in the back, was a pregnancy test from a -scare- we had awhile back. Before we decided we were ready. I stared at it for what seemed like at least seven minutes while Sam jangled the keys in the door trying very hard to refrain from telling me that we were going to miss our dinner reservation. What was the date today? I had been feeling sick and exhausted and just weird, but could it have really worked on the first try? I didn't know. But I grabbed the box and threw it in my purse, completely forgoing the red lipstick.

I chewed on a breadstick once we got our seat at the Olive Garden. I kept nudging my purse further under the table with my foot, hoping it would help me to stop thinking about what was inside. My meal was hurried, conversation was distracted until I finally couldn't stand it and excused myself to the restroom. I remember waiting in the stall for people to leave because I didn't want them to hear me open the box and experience such a private moment in a Olive Garden restroom. I thoroughly read the instructions twice (I had no idea what I was doing) and waited.
2 lines appeared immediately. TWO LINES!!!!! I re-read the instructions one more time to make sure I really knew what that meant. It could only mean one thing...

I turned the corner of the hall back to the seating area of the restaurant and whammed right into a waiter. I just grinned at him and didn't even say sorry. The dining area was a plethora of rich aromas, laughing faces, warm candlight... everything seemed so much more beautiful to me now. I slid back into our booth with my proof ever so gently hiding in my clenched hands.

Sam was speaking and I was pretending to listen (sorry sweetie), but I kept imaging which adorable way -thanks Pinterest- I was going to break the pregnancy news to my husband. I was a bubbling vat of giddiness that couldn't stifled, so instead, I whipped out my phone to record his reaction, and in a stammering voice I admitted that I went to the bathroom and....HERE! I chucked the test across the table at him. Because of my rough and unplanned delivery, it took him a minute to comprehend what I was saying, but I'll never forget the way Sam's face looked. A little bit of worry, unbelief, a hint of 'are we really grown-up enough to do this?!', but mostly I'll remember his joyful smile and the way he said, "Kenna!".

A movie was absolutely out of the question at this point. How was I supposed to sit still and think about anything else?! I had something beautiful, miraculous, and so wonderful happening INSIDE of me! I wanted to shout to the world, "I'm a sacred vessel!". (Ok...I may have yelled that a couple of times driving down the freeway on the way home...)

Wait.
 "Should we get more sticks?" I asked. "Make sure this is real?!" and for one fleeting moment my heart was stricken at the thought that it might not be. That's what caused me to buy every single brand of test at the store (not cheap) and pee on all of them. And yes, every single stick had two lines. TWO LINES!!!!

I have a file on my laptop labeled "Hard times" which I haven't looked back on until tonight right before writing this. After re-watching these videos of me and my love gushing about the way life would change for us, watching my mom stroke my hair after I told her the news, and seeing my nephew's dawn of realization that he was about to have a new cousin, I see that my label is clearly mistitled. These were some of my very Happiest Times.

Pregnancy wasn't so easy. I was sick, had heartburn up to my ears, and I cried at every commercial. Every. Single. One. It didn't help that this was all taking place during the Olympics and for some reason all these young Olympians achieving their dreams (and thanking their moms for it) were more than my hormone-infused heart could handle.

One night after teaching dancing and throwing up more than a few times, I was sobbing on the couch because my favorite Russian figure skating couple was just eliminated from the Finals because the girl slipped on her triple axle that she hit JUST the day before during practice... (still bitter about this) and my husband came to console me and tried not to let his mouth twitch too much from attempting to contain his laughter.

Then it hit me like a jar of pickles, I wanted a Bratwurst. I NEEDED A BRAUT. I bellowed this to my hubs and was so excited my aversion to all foods besides pickles was subsiding. My husband rushed to the store and fried me one right up while I stayed glued to my whole infuriating ice figure skating debacle.

Sam brought me the plate and my greedy hands stopped dead before picking up the bun. This thing was grayish. And slimy. And completely different than I had imagined entirely. I timidly nibbled on the end and tried to swallow---no. No No No No No. I commenced in a super long puk-a-thon that made me miss the winning skating routine. I came out of the bathroom and whimpered like a child. Then I started to sob, and I could not stop. I couldn't catch my breath. I called my mother who was so frightened at first and once she made out what I was saying, "I- Www-anted a B-b-braut and they are NOT what I thought they w-w-were!!!!" She laughed so hard she made the tea kettle sound (if you haven't heard this laugh yet, it is a must), which made me laugh and then cry over the fact that I was crying over a hot dog.

My due date, October 11th, felt SOOO far away. Not because being preggo was uncomfortable, but because I could not contain my love and excitement.

I'm writing this because it is one of my favorite memories. Pregnancy wasn't easy but I loved every minute of it. I felt like I was in the movies.

One night (watching women's snowboarding this time), I started cramping really bad. So bad, in fact, that the only way I could handle the pain was to get in the tub and Google what could be going on down there. (Never google anything while pregnant. NEVER.) I started bleeding. I was so scared and so helpless I called my sisters in a mess. I could hear and feel their concern over the phone but I could also sense them masking their fear, which worried me even more. Nothing could make me smile right then, not even joking about Brauts.

I rushed to an emergency doctor's appointment a few days later. I told her my concerns (also one concern about this terrible cough I had. I was so scared it would vibrate my baby too much and it would come right out of the comfy little home I made it. Um yes... I do see now that this is complete idiocy). They took my hormone levels and said they would watch to see if they rose enough. I didn't know what any of that meant, but every day I woke up and told myself, "Come on. Be moody!"

GOOD NEWS! It came on a Thursday. I skipped into dance class and told my co-workers that I had just received a phone call saying that my hormones had TRIPLED in three days. They congratulated me and told me to stop skipping, I was pregnant after all, take it easy!

The days flew by and the weight flew off my shoulders bit my bit, along with my worries. I started wandering around the baby aisles at all the stores, and even though it was early, bought a blanket and a totally rad tuxedo bib and a teeny tiny snowboarding beanie. (Both of which I gave to my best friend's baby boy a few weeks ago, and my heart soared to see him wear them.)

I was now two months along. I woke up early to curl my hair before the doctor's appointment. I don't know why this was important to me at the time, I just wanted to be a beautiful mother with a beautiful baby inside of her. We drove to Salt Lake and waited anxiously for the doctor to arrive. Sam snapped a few pictures of me on his phone and told me this was the day we'd remember forever as the day we 'officially' got to meet our baby.

The nice doctor lady came in. Her face is now a blur, but I remember her calm voice as she prepared me for the ultrasound and told me to relax. I don't know how she knew my heart was pounding in my ears. The small talk subsided as she moved the camera around. The silence pressed against my warm cheeks. I didn't need to look at her. I didn't need to look at the screen. I already knew. I guess in a sense I had always known. I had felt that fear and that dread in my heart, a mother's intuition, that something wasn't right since the night I had cramped. I had try to squelch that fear and fill my mind with positivity especially after I was told everything was normal and okay. Though she knew I knew, and I knew she knew, the doctor had to say it. It's her job. Though I'm sure it's not what she signed up for. "Something is terribly wrong. I'm so sorry. I can't see a heart beat." She unplugged the machine and I remember the way the light left and the "zshoom" sound of the power turning off.

I also shut down. I didn't ask any questions. I didn't answer any questions. I couldn't look at anyone's eyes or even nod my head as they talked AT me not TO me. I just sat on the crinkly paper bed and tried to reign in the pain. I clutched my chest and felt the darkness squeeze around me. It was gone, it was gone before it had even started, but I didn't know it was this possible to love something this little so much. So soon. But I did. I loved it with my whole soul.

The receptionists were calm and sympathetic and everything they were supposed to be as they checked me out. I wanted them to yell and scream and throw the papers off their neat desks and tell me they understood how unfair it was! But they didn't. They called after me to "Come again, and Have a Nice day."

I got outside and crouched in a ball, trying to contain the pain again. Sam half carried me to the car. I had to call my mom and sisters. To me this was the hardest part. They were the people I loved most in the world and shared with them my excitement and joy every step of the way. In a way I felt like I had let them down. In a way, I didn't want to be pitied. But in the worst way, I wanted them there.

We drove to Walgreen's to pick up the prescription for the despicable pills that would officially numb the physical pain but wouldn't touch my soul. Sam ran into the store and I slammed my hand on the dash of the car over and over.

The next few days were my darkest. My mom came to take care of me, but I didn't talk, sleep, or eat. People visited, I acted like I was doing better, but I was not. I felt no glimmer of light. Not until I found a few pine needles in my bedroom. (See post: Grief and Pine Needles).

I was scheduled for the surgery the next day. I was so afraid. I didn't want to feel pregnant anymore, it just reminded me that I was no longer, but I didn't want it to end. Then I would be saying goodbye before I got to even say hello. The night before the procedure I started feeling contractions. Soon I was screaming in pain and losing a lot of blood. Sam called the emergency room but it was all happening so fast. I had never been in so much pain, this time both physical and emotional. I didn't want to see it this way, I didn't want to know anything about this part. I was supposed to be asleep in a blissful anesthesia oblivion when all of this happened. But I was coherent, so coherent every detail is forever embedded into my brain, and I delivered in my own home. It was so traumatic for me to see all the blood and something so sacred fall on the floor. This was my worst day.

I don't relive this day often. I don't let my mind wander to that folder I've labeled "Hard Times" that I have now filed away. But it is because of this that I think Miscarriage (Yes, I finally said that. awful. word.) is so hard. It is never talked about! The weeks that I was going through all this I felt completely alone. No one UNDERSTOOD the way I felt. Everyone else seemed to have fairytale endings. This is completely untrue. So many women battle these emotions every day. If only we shared our strength with each other instead of filing our memories away to be avoided.

The hardest thing about a miscarriage is never feeling like what you had and the child you loved was real. Only a select few people even knew I was pregnant. It feels like something that just happened to me many months ago. I felt that love. I felt that bond that a mother has with her child, and I am telling you that it was real.

I guess that's why I am sharing this now, it was so real. And though it was brief, it was beautiful. There were so many emotions tied to this time in my life. Elation, hilarity, devastation, and unbearable pain. But they can't be masked and they demand to be felt. Especially as this date approaches.

October 11th should have been my special day.
It's not happening like I dreamt it would every time I uttered proudly, "I'm due October 11th", but I'm going to make it a special day nonetheless. It's a day for remembering what once was and remembering what is truly important and what goals I want to attain. It's a day to be celebrated and a day to open up my "Hard Times" folder and see what Heavenly Father has really given me besides a trial I had to overcome. He let me feel immense love. He gave me a glimpse of what is yet to come.

He gave me a day to always be remembered.
October 11th, 2014.

There Will Always Be Light

The world takes a lot from it. Sometimes it is lethal, ruthless in it's attack. Things are often gone as quickly as they have come. Countries are at war, natural disasters destroy as quick as a crack, and children are swiped away before their time.

 We spend a lot of time being swallowed up in the darkness that is death. hate. addiction. guilt. loss. Every now and then we open ourselves up to it. We surrender our positivity that can at times be made of steel, and we just feel. We don't justify, we don't try and understand. We just succumb to the fact that sometimes, the light is very dim and very far away.  The darkness is vast and wide. And it will always be there, ebbing it's way into the every day news and into our very own lives. The darkness now becomes familiar and personal. It stretches it's spindly fingers long and wide until soon we have to desperately remind ourselves of what is good and just, and light, and happy, and everything that world was meant to be in the first place.

Tonight there are too many brothers without their sisters. There are too many mothers without their children, and far too much emptiness to bear. But we have to.

Because, in a world where someone can be taken from you in a matter of seconds, a ruthless world that doesn't give anyone a chance for a goodbye, it is because of it, after all, that we are even here to experience it in the first place.

And with the responsibility that comes with being given all that we are given, sometimes things have to be taken back. Things have to be devastating. Sometimes trying to find light in the dark 'wonderful unknown' seems to be more than we signed up for and we feel like we will never find happiness. That place somewhere far in the clouds where nothing bad or painful ever happens, it doesn't exist.

"People get lost when they think of happiness as a destination. We're always thinking that someday we'll be happy; when we get that car, that job, or find the person in our lives that fixes everything. But happiness is a mood, and a condition, not a destination. It's like being tired or hungry. It's not permanent. It comes and goes and that's ok. And I feel like if people thought of it that way, they'd find happiness a lot more often." --One Tree Hill

So is it okay to feel darkness when our world is supposed to be full of light? It's okay. Just like it's okay to feel hungry from time to time.

 Five teenagers from my area have passed away in the last few weeks, two of them hitting close to my heart. Death is a constant around us lately. There seems to be more crimes than acts of kindness, and we have grown accustomed to assuming the worst about someone so we are 'better safe than sorry'. We are closing in ourselves, trying to protect our hearts and families from a world that is too far gone. A world we have pegged as 'ruthless'. It is because of this mantra that darkness is becoming harder to fight.

I have always believed that whatever you want, GIVE IT AWAY. Today I want more light. So I'm going to give more away. I want to feel more happiness, so I'm going to make others happier. I want people to stop hurting, and I want their ache to go away... but I don't know what to do for that. And that's what sorrows me most of all.

But... only one redeemer could truly give everything away, and he did. He gave it all away so we could feel whole. He fills up our gaping wounds and emptiness with his love and grace. And that, is the source of all lightness. This light is what makes up the very core of the earth and the core of the human, vindicating our hearts from the darkness that was never meant to belong there. We have to remember that it will never go away no matter how devastating everything surrounding us may feel.

We have to trust that in a world that is filled with the wonderful unknown there will always be overpowering darkness.                            
                                       But somewhere,                       
                                                                    there will also be light.

The Shiniest Versions of Ourselves

A friend I met with ALS asked once, "Do you know what's so great about having a terminal illness?" ...(To which I stared at him blankly)..., "You get to hear what people would say about you at your eulogy." He continued, "People don't hold back when they know you are leaving. You get to see the impact you have made on the world before you are gone."

Since that moment a big question on my mind has been, "What will I be remembered for?".

The people that have made the biggest impact on me have sometimes been nameless, faceless, or not the most profound, yet I will always remember them. I've come to realize people will often forget what you say, they will forget what you do, but they will always remember you for the way you make them feel.

So that leads again to the question, "What will I be remembered for?"
"How did I make people feel?" "How do I treat people on a day to day basis?" "How do I treat others when they can do nothing for me in return?"

I do not have a terminal illness, but I am leaving a studio and students I have taught for the last four years. I have seen some of these girls grown from children to teens, from teens into beautiful women. And I have loved every second.

Last week when I explained I was leaving, the air in the dance studio was heavy and somber. One of the other teachers walked in to try and lift our moods and said, "Come on guys, she's not dying!", and a student replied, "It's like she is. We will never see her again."

I felt like a bucket of icy water hit me. It was that moment that I remembered my friend with ALS and since it seemed I was practically dying to these kids, I began to worry what I will be remembered for, or if I'll be remembered at all. There were no do-overs, no more time to leave them with something of importance. I thought back on all the years, the good days, the bad days... the long hours. If I could go back and make all those moments perfect, I would. If I could do over moments of frustrations, weakness, or impatience, I would. I would leave these girls with only the best shiny crafted image of myself possible. But it's never as you experience life that you think of these things, it's only as you are leaving, or the moment is over and things are changing that you go back and think, "I hope I did all right."

I was thinking tonight that if only we could always be the best version of ourselves, we would never have any regrets. We wouldn't look back and wonder if we did all right. If only we could strive to be better each and every day, we would never have to be afraid of what versions of ourselves will be the most remembered. We would never have to paint over our bloopers or downfalls because we would always be at our SHINIEST.

I feel so overwhelmed with the amount of love from my students as I have received cards and letters and some of their most prized possessions that I was asked to keep "so I could remember them always". I'm overwhelmed because I think that maybe if I had any idea just how much I was being watched and how much my words have impacted, I would have tried harder and chosen them more carefully. I would have tried harder to always be shiny.

I'm so glad that little ones have tender hearts that seem to always remember you at your best. They are willing to love you whole heartedly, mistakes and all. I hope as a teacher I can always be worthy of that love and admiration and always be worthy to be called someone's role model.

The only way to always leave just the shiny memories is to live shiny. Each and every day. We need to be shiny even when moments seem trivial. Sure, we all put on our best face when we are in the spotlight, or when we have an opportunity for imparting wisdom, but that doesn't build someone who is truly shiny. That is practicing to have shiny moments, not to actually BE shiny. It's the little moments that define who we are. It's how well we shine when the clerk at Ross is extremely rude (today), or how much love we expend when little ones are tugging on our arms and dropping chocolate icing on our white shirts (also today).

To be able to live without regret, we must be our best selves every day. And when we mess up and create a moment we wish to paint-over, we try again the next day until slowly and surely, we get it right.

I'm blessed to teach young impressionable children, and I don't take that job lightly. As a part of my life closes and another one begins, I'm going to try harder. I'm going to remember just how much impact one person can have, and I'm going to remember that person can be me. I hope we all get a moment to hear how we will be remembered by another person, or how we have changed a life, because it is after that that we see a small glimpse of who we truly are and how we are doing in the game of life. Every moment that we have the choice to smile or be offended, be grateful or be entitled, be patient or be hurtful, we create a memory of ourselves that can't be painted over. Which one will we chose?

One of my favorite ideas for living is: "Whatever you want, give it away."
 If you want peace, be peaceful.
If you want more kindness, love more.
If you want more magic, make the lives of others more magical.

Don't wait until something is over to realize your impact. Live each day impact-fully!

-McKenna

Grief and Pine Needles

 

I pushed my legs higher up the mountain. They were weak and exhausted but I wanted to put as much distance between me and the earth below as possible. Before I left I grabbed a few things and headed to the place where I always feel safe, the mountains.

I didn't stop until I was high enough to believe I had put enough space between me and my problems. I stopped on a log and finally let the tears betray me as they slid endlessly down my face. A knob jabbed my leg but I didn't shift positions. I didn't even bother to swat the bugs off of me. I just sat peering up at the tall trees whose tips faded into the sky and wished, like them, I could disappear.

It took me a long time until I felt calm enough to let the anger and sadness inside me begin to disappear. The sun slid down the trees before I began to feel cold and very alone. Just when I remembered that when you have no one to talk to, you always do. I looked into the sky and prayed. I prayed for peace. I prayed for solace. I prayed for the chance to open my heart and feel of God's love.

It was almost all the way dark now. I had wandered through the wilderness and had the distinct realization that no one knew where I was. I jogged through the tall grass and dirt with more vigor and energy than I had had in days. My throat and lungs burned, making me feel alive. I slowed as the mountainside evened out and I gained my bearings about where I was. I walked pensively, my eyes at the tip of my hiking boots, when I felt it. A surge of hapiness. My head shot up as my heart filled with warmth. I inhaled again. Pine Trees.

I squinted through the dark and edged to the side of the path to scoop up a whole handful of the glorious needles underneath the tree and held them to my nose. I took in again their bitter-sweet scent.
Christmas. Family. Laughter. Joy. Tradition. Mountain air. Freedom. Love..............PEACE.

In an instant I felt it all. Warmth filled my soul and I choked on my tears and laughter as I took a needle and bit it between my teeth.
I was redeemed.

One tender mercy from the Lord was all it took to be reminded. Just like the Ghosts of Christmas past and Christmas Future had come in the dead of night, those pine needles where sent to remind me of my good, wonderful, happy memories. Memories past, and hope of those yet to come. Life was going to go on. Though I didn't feel anything but emptiness now, I saw through the darkness and found possibility.

***

I was feeling better. Moments of light lifted my spirits, but I still had those times of bleak sadness. I was having one of those moments in the drive through line at McDonalds, of all places. I thought maybe a Diet Dr. Pepper and some fries would at least bring me momentary happiness. The silence in my car was deafening and I felt heavy pain threaten to squish me whole. I was stuck in the crowded drive through and had no choice but to wait and let the tears fall. We were finally moving and I pulled up to the window and I had my two dollar bills and quarter in my hand reaching to toward the window while I kept my eyes down.
"Miss," I looked up. The manager and cashier were both at the window. "The lady in the car in front of you bought your meal and says to tell you to have a better day." I was shocked and mumbled a reply while I tried to stuff my money back in my wallet.

I pulled out of the restaurant and was trying to get a glimpse of my sweet stranger, but she turned left and I turned right. We both went about our day. I tried to see the freeway entrance through my blurry tears. It wasn't about the $2.13, it was about the love. I felt the Lord working through his servants to remind me I was noticed, cared about. I was loved and never forgotten. No matter how small of an act, the meaning to me was full of grandeur. My fizzy drink never tasted so good.

***

Just as I was feeling lighter and back to normal, my body started to go through the changes and my day was one of the worst I've had. My heart ached and wished for release, but I had nothing left to give, no more tears to cry out.

I sighed and sat on my bedroom floor and put my head between my hands. I tried to regulate my breathing so I wouldn't break again. It was hopeless. Minutes later I told myself to get up. I put on one shoe and looked around for the other. I reached underneath my bed to retrieve it and felt something slide on the hardwood floor underneath my palm. I brought whatever it was towards me and lifted my hand. Pine Needles.

I stared at them in shock. It was February. But I did not have a Christmas tree in my bedroom even in December. Besides that, I had just swept underneath the bed last week. But they were there, though slightly yellow, as real as ever. A tangible miracle.

Again I felt the arms of love wrap around me as I wept and grinned and reached my hand to my nose to inhale the very faint scent. I whole heartedly received my tender reminder. "This too shall pass."
 

"Where do we go from here?
How do we carry on?
I can't get beyond the questions.
Clambering for the scraps
In the shatter of us collapsed.
It cuts me with every could-have-been.

Everybody says that time heals everything.
But what of the wretched hollow?
The endless in-between?
Are we just going to wait it out?"

 Nothing to do now but rest, chase sleep that leads to a dream land where no one hurts for real,
and wait it out.
 And never lose faith.

"The Widow's Walk" (A short story)

 

 

I'd like to share with you a symbolic short story I wrote inspired by the picture below. My mom was extremely touched when my sister sent her this photo she took of a place she visited while sight seeing down south. My mother said this photo spoke to her and she knew there was a story there just waiting to be told, so I tried to tell it.

 

 

The Widow’s Walk

The wooden boards were sodden and bogged, much like her thoughts. She paused with her hand on the rail and was once again stricken by the beauty of the terrible abyss before her. She lifted her soiled petticoat and with one tentative step forward she sunk a little in the marsh and looked down at what should be firm and solid beneath her feet. The greying boards were splintered and wet, although there was no water nearby. Down below the cliff there might be, she had never gotten far enough to peer over, but not up here. There couldn’t be water amongst the dead yellow grass and the parched and crumbling dirt surrounding where she stood. The boards where she trod should be dry and brittle. But tonight, they were not. She was not sure why this bothered her so.

        Perhaps it was because every single night she awoke and started again. Until this night, she had awakened before her black boots touched the path before her. This is the farthest she had come. She had always figured that if she could just make it this far her feet would strike against the wood in a confident state of knowing. They would bound beneath her and soar her to The Point. They would take her to her Maker and all of this would end. Every thought haunting the inside of her skull, the voices tormenting her off of this path night after night, the lonely dread that spread from her cold heart to the tips of her fingers the moment she awoke and had to endure it all over…all this, would be gone. She ached for that bleak state of nothing when she was allowed to exist no more.

        Tonight however, as she craned her long neck to glimpse where the matter-less moor stretched on, she was not sure. She was not knowing. Her feet did not stride, but shook as she tried to shift her weight forward onto her unsteady feet. Is this what she was intended? How could she be sure this was the plan of her Maker and not her Demons?  

        It had been more than forty summers that she had been filled with torment. Three weeks plus forty years ago she had sent her bridegroom on his voyage. She stood with her hands grasping the wrought iron railing around the west balcony of her manor and watched the ship fade away into nothing as it departed, almost certain to never return.

“Jacob.” She whispered when the ship was no more than a mere speck of her imagination against the empty horizon. The name left her lips and clung to the silence around her.

Now, it still hangs heavy in every room of the estate. His name is whispered over and over with the same sound of thousands arachnids scuttling over the walls and echoing throughout the endless corridors. There was not one place of solace for her except her dreams, which were filled with more lifelike and terrorizing unknown than the haunt that habituated within her during her actual consciousness. Whether asleep or awake, she’s always faced with The Path.

Even now, a damp wind breaking her reverie, she could glance back at the crumbling pillars of her home against the moor and feel nothing; nothing but emptiness and the ghost of what once was. She squared her shoulders forward towards the orange angry sky and the rising path leading to freedom in front of her. She felt no constraint in choice or action this time as she took one more creaking step forward onto The Path. 

The wind rushed against her skirts as if it were a punishment, making her stumble and reminding her that she is still unsure and unsafe. She lost her footing and felt the forces pulling and threatening to make her lose her way again. She ducked her head and plowed on. Only a little further. She was almost halfway down The Path to The Point. She collapsed against the wooden rails on the side of her. She thought of the first time she noticed these rails during the past tests when she first began to face The Path many years ago. She thought if only she could reach them she could at least drag her weighted legs forward until she reached The Point but after decades of failing to reach them, the thought became admissible.

        But she was here now. She hooked her boot around the first beam on the hand rail. She wasn’t going to accept any possibility of peril. She paused only for a moment to tuck away the grey streaked auburn tendrils that frizzed around her head in disarray like a halo. Her long hair had been a silken sheet of youth that was as warm as her laugh and smelled of sunshine. Decades ago she tied it in a knot underneath her high collared blouse and hid it away. It made her think of him, and she had no more use for it.

        She hadn’t touched her porcelain face or hair in years, for she was not aware of the living, or the dead for that matter, but always alone standing on her balcony or out on the moor fighting the winds and the demons. She was about to meet him… and Him, and suddenly she was aware. She pinched her pale cheeks and the sudden sharp pain felt as if an icy breath had entered her lungs. She could feel. She was not asleep, but she knew she could not be awake, for when she squeezed her eyelids and fluttered them open again, The End was still in front of her looking so beautiful and serene she felt her throat harden and hot splashes run down her cheeks.  She did not dare glance back to see how far she had come and conquered. She didn’t need to know how much she had attained because she could feel it. She could feel the opposition tugging her back like a magnet intended to return her to grey and brittle and cold desolation. She gritted her teeth and gripped the rugged wood with both hands. For behold, fortune favored the brave.

        The path turned upward. It became increasingly steeper and more slippery; the last obstacle is always where one loses their valor. It is the final battle where the soldier dies to become a hero, but nonetheless dead and no more than dust. She felt the grass, a vibrant green, scratching at her knuckles as tall as the rails, and chanced a glance down. The plants and foliage pushed and shoved from under the wooden path. Life had been hidden much too long and now it is gasping for breath. She smiled at the shades of green that turned yellow and brown and black once she had moved away from them. She was life; she was making it towards abounding life.

        In the midst of all the darkness, she found that within her there was an invincible light. She had not known this until now, when the demons began to fall away from her. She grew taller with every sound of snapping chain and wails within the confines of her mind until she was large with stature and might.

        She was no longer afraid. Because, she thought to herself as she climbed on, I will never really die because I existed once before, I was never actually born. She turned her face to the sky, her matter-less moor, and closed her eyes trying to remember The Time and let the soft purple and yellow light play against her eyelids.

        Her hands reached on but felt no more wood for her to grasp. She had reached The Point. She let her arm dangle down into the emptiness. How strange is it going to be to feel nothing? Be nothing? No, she corrected. How much stranger is it to be anything at all?

        The crossed gate in front of her was her last barrier. But she was no longer doubtful or wary. Fear and faith cannot exist in the same place at the same time. She was surprised when the gate swung away from her rather than towards her. It made perfect explanation though, why would she take two steps back to allow room for the gate when she had already come this far?

        Her toes escaped the ledge as she edged closer to peer down over the cliff. She drug air through her slowly so she could revel in this moment in which she had searched and longed for during her thousands of days of banishment. She opened her eyes.

        “Oh!” her voiced scratched aloud for the first time since she had whispered his name one last time as she took in the sight before her. This was not what she expected. It was more wonderful and full of splendor then she had ever imagined. This is her purpose and her decision.

        She turned around slowly to see what was behind her one last time. She did not look because she was unsure. She wasn’t glancing back because a part of her was still tied down and imprisoned; she looked to see upon which she had stamped. She wanted to search the bluff leading to her stone dungeon and scoff at her demons. She gasped though, as her hand searched for the rail to lean against. There was nothing behind her. Nothing but space and atoms and all things that truly exist, for everything else is only opinion.

        Facing forward again and into the treasures folded in the purple and yellow clouds, she felt the gate threatening to close shut. Her knuckles were white so she released them one by one and held her arms straight out to her sides and rocked her weight forward onto her the tips of her boots… onto nothing.

The warm wind whipped and snapped at her robes until she was no longer bound. Heat spread from the roots of her hair and she felt the knot at her neck untwist until her hair was a blazing billowing fiery red torrent of warmth around her. She smelled sunshine for the first time in years.

        Just as she was braced for impact she glided further upwards. She was a dove. She landed on a gold tapestry of silk that stretched on. A golden path to follow, but she was certain of where this one ended. Her Maker. Her feet struck the ground in a confident state of knowing.

        She glided on until she could see no path before her. Declare thy great worthyness. She felt, rather than heard, a deep rumble say.

Compared to this light, she was an infant, scarcely able to speak. She tried to lift her chin but couldn’t. But she had come so far! Your light is too brilliant for me to bear. She moaned. Her voice floated like a series of musical chords.

        No my angel. She felt her neck straighten and become weightless as it was lifted tall and straight. You are my light, and I am yours.

Her heart exploded with blessedness and the wretched walls in her mind burst free with song as she remembered.

        The golden path and light before her was then replaced by the view of her matter-less moor, this time unhindered by a gate, rolling on and on into eternity. She saw a speck in the horizon growing closer rather than farther this time, and she knew. She felt her feet fly. Miracles do exist among the ubiquity of the mundane. Light can conquer demons.

And now, she knew what it was to exist even if she didn’t really exist at all, or never did.

        “Jacob” She whispered again. The speck resonated before her. “Josephine.” He finally answered back.

“Jacob,” she said more loudly.  “Jacob, oh My Jacob. I am Freed.”