When Christmas Falls Silent
Silent Night, Holy Night are words synonymous with Christmas. That reflective peace, the awe surrounding the holy Child’s birth, the fascination of the miracle that has occurred. But silence at Christmas is often filled with a numbing pain. The type of silence that occurs when voices fall still. Voices that have spoken, laughed, sung, and whispered throughout every Christmas you can recall. The voices of loved ones no longer here.
This Christmas is bittersweet for me, and the silence is impacting me in very poignant way. It is my first Christmas—ever—without a grandparent. My first Christmas since I was ten, (insert: thirty years), that my Gramma has not had a present wrapped beneath the tree. The scent of her Folgers (gasp! Cheap coffee) has drifted away, the sound of her voice giving my mom instructions as if she were still ten herself, and the conspiratorial winks she cast me when no one was looking.
My Gramma was the other half of me. I always wanted to believe I was like my Gramma Wright. Sweet, soft spoken, kind, gracious, and sensitive. But let’s face it, I am my Gramma Greenwood in spades. Direct, to-the-point, sentimental-to-a-point until reality is just that, reality, so face it and move on. A bit sarcastic, sometimes cynical, would fight to the death for her family, is loyal to a fault, and loves with every passionate ounce of her poker-faced being. Granted, Gramma wasn’t dramatic like I can be, nor super witty, and she wasn’t goofy—usually. But, Gramma got me, and I got her. We were, after all, kindred spirits. She knew it. I knew it.
This Christmas is still holy, as we celebrate Jesus’ birth, but I am very aware of the silence that sometimes envelopes a celebration. That silence of treasured memories, suppressed tears, and an empty chair. I am also more aware of the promise that arrives in the silence, in the shadow of a manger. The promise of hope, of continued life, of grace, and the knowledge that the last “I love you”, truly wasn’t the last.
My six-year-old daughter has her eternal home planned, complete with blueprints. I really hope Jesus is ok with the concept of elephants standing sentinel outside her bedroom doors, slides from the second story to the first story in the place of stairs, and a coffee bar suited for “mommy’s visits”. It’s funny, now, in the Christmas silence, that the imagination of a six-year-old doesn’t seem so silly any more. I have put in a few requests for my eternal home as well. The coffee bar sounds like a really good idea, I’d like to have a ginormous bed where I can sleep for hours with no threat of alarm clocks, and I’d like a huge library with red walls and dark, walnut shelving. But the outside is taking on less magnanimous design. It resembles a front porch, some potted geraniums, the drifting smell of Folger’s coffee, and Gramma standing on the stairs, waiting . . .
Yes, Christmas is silent for now, but it won’t be forever.
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Professional coffee drinker & ECPA/Publisher's Weekly best-selling author,
Jaime Jo Wright resides in the hills of Wisconsin writing spirited romantic suspense stained with the shadows of history. Coffee fuels her snarky personality. She lives in Neverland with her Cap’n Hook who stole her heart and will not give it back, their little fairy Tinkerbell, and a very mischievous Peter Pan. The foursome embark on scores of adventure that only make her fall more wildly in love with romance and intrigue.
Jaime lives in dreamland, exists in reality, and invites you to join her adventures at
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