grayspike

This Christmas was dark.

Under the best circumstances, Im not a real cheerful holiday person. Besides, Im still recovering from events of the summer.

I thought Id be fairly well back in the normal groove by now. Wrong. Progress comes in fits and starts, then theres always something which escorts me back to the starting point.

For a while I thought mother had overcome it altogether. Wrong again. Too much of her holiday festivities included sitting in her darkened rooms listening to leaden carols and jazz.

The carols were heavy. No hearty singing by Burl Ives about Rudolph nor finger-popping from the Shirelles. No. Each of these carols seemed determined to mire Christ in Christmas.

The jazz was 3 a.m. lonely. All she lacked were other lost people locked in their own worlds, unattended cigarettes clouding the air and shared unspoken misery.

Bad as I believed we had it and sulk as I wanted, I know someone who had it monstrously worse.

A peer who had been striving mightily with his wife to have children finally produced a miracle less than two years ago. Their child thoroughly re-ordered all priorities. Everything the parents did was now attuned to that child.

They actually designed and built a new house to the childs present and likely future requirements.

A week before Christmas the toddler died. The cause wont be known until next year, but circumstances were gruesome. The fathers description had me thinking of a biological agent which had gone awry.

Accidentally or intentionally released, our society has produced plenty of compounds which after finding an unlucky host will destroy that body.

Speculation aside, their anger immense, the parents have discarded their religion. Although the child will receive a proper burial, thats more to satisfy convention and those still devout relatives.

Time and distance will prevent me from attending the service. Just as well. The priest will be looking to comfort; the parents for answers. They wont be receptive to ambiguities and riddles, nor parables or allusions.

They will demand to know the reasons behind so harsh a punishment. Since the Almighty seldom issues direct answers, one hopes the priest is glib. There may be heated dialogue between pulpit and pew.

Its the sort of possible calamity that makes sitting in dark rooms listening to downbeat music desirable.