More Light

A winter night’s grace.

Last night at dinner, I felt a twinge of emotion spring into my throat. It caught me by surprise, not that it shouldn’t have: we were sitting down to Sunday supper around the table, each of the children lighting the candles of the wreath the fourth week of Advent, our plates piled high with steaming-hot food on the darkest evening of the year.

Our anniversary.

It’s been too long now for me to remember with any accuracy whether we thought much about the symbolism of getting married on the winter solstice. Rather, I suspect we chose the date because it was a Saturday. That it happened to fall on the 21st was lovely enough–we first started dating on a 21st, and my birthday is on a 21st. Kelly, a young teacher, and I, a poor college student, both knew we’d have winter break to count on for time off from work. The church was available–and, importantly for a budget wedding, already decorated. So it was that we spoke our vows to each other four days before Christmas.

Twenty-three years later, it’s astonishing to me to see everything that’s followed. My goodness at all these twenty-three years have produced: a crowded table, a stunning abundance we never could have imagined so long ago.

Yesterday’s anniversary fell on the fourth Sunday of Advent. The first week of the season is centered on the theme of hope; the second, peace; the third, joy; and the fourth, love. So it was a coincidence, but a happy one, as we waited for Annie to master the lighter, working to defeat the child-proof safety, and illuminate the fourth candle. Love.

It hasn’t been the easiest week before Christmas. Julia has been fighting off a deep chest cold. Mom came down with the flu. Dad has Covid. Both parents have begged off from getting together, especially since we are due to fly to New Jersey to visit Aunt Shirley and Uncle Bill. No use in risking getting anyone else sick, let alone those two.

Others bore heavier burdens: a friend lost her father the weekend before, dead of a massive heart attack on a Sunday morning at home. She tried and tried to resuscitate him. Another’s daughter, whose mental health struggles have come once more to a head, was involuntarily committed to a juvenile facility hours away. When you’re involuntarily committed, they sometimes transport you in an inmate van. It takes your breath away.

In Statesville, a private jet carrying a former race car driver, his family, and several friends crashed at the city airport. No one survived. One of the passengers was a dear friend to many of my friends. It’s strange when something so personal becomes widely public. A celebrity’s airplane crashed, and soon there were videos of the burning jet on Facebook and national news coverage and tributes from other famous people, all of it somehow masking that these are real people, that some of these people had friends who are my friends, and they have to see the videos of the flames, too.

The catch in my throat came fast, the kids laughing and cutting up, Christmas music playing from the other room. How lucky, how wonderfully, stupidly lucky I am.

I said grace last night with a tender heart and deep gratitude. I opened my eyes to four glowing, beloved faces, and around the wreath on our table, there was more light.