Remembering Joy
KTHT Advent Calendar Prompts: Day 4
How can hurt can be cleansed and restored, bringing about the return of hope and healing?
Growing up, the arrival of Sears & Roebuck’s Christmas catalog always ushered in the holiday season. My siblings and I spent hours circling items and writing our initials beside the toys we wanted. Of course, we rarely got anything we circled, but it never seemed to matter. I don’t remember being disappointed on Christmas morning when the items I had circled didn’t show up in my stocking or underneath the tree.
It wasn’t until I was ten that I realized we were considered “poor.” My parents, out of necessity, had recently sold the cows and the farming equipment to pay off their debts. One December day, someone from town drove up the hill to our farm and delivered a basket of food and repurposed toys for my younger brothers. My older siblings and I were very excited about the food basket. However, we couldn’t understand why my parents were mortified by the gesture.
I never felt the same about Christmas after that year. My dad went back to college to get his teaching degree, and my mom worked low-paying jobs to put food on the table. I stopped scouring through the Christmas catalog when it arrived and started a new tradition. I would sneak into my parent’s bedroom to find and open the present with my name on the tag. I did this because I wanted to feign delight on Christmas morning when I opened the gift my parents could afford, not the present I had my heart set on receiving.
Every year since the fifth grade, I have struggled to feel joy during Christmas. There are many things I like, even love, about the holiday season, but they require a great deal of effort on my part. And there is always a persistent feeling of sadness just below the surface. I struggle to understand why so many people consider it the most wonderful time of the year.
Every day this week, I listened to Master Chunyi Lin’s diamond sutra meditation. In the meditation, he asks you to reflect on your life and see if you have any emotional suffering, worries, or concerns. He then asks if you are holding onto any negative stories deep inside you, and if you feel a disconnection between your heart and your body. I realized that I have indeed held onto many worries from a young age. And I felt a definite disconnection between my heart and my body of which I wasn’t even aware.
He instructed us to say, “I’m so sorry to our bodies for what we did in the past, and to please take as much love as you need from your heart and heal yourself completely.” By the end of the week I felt released from the burdens I had been carrying for decades.
My husband and I have had a bit of a rough patch this fall. I had Covid the last week in October. (So much for thinking I was immune.) As I began to feel better, my husband caught his fingers in a wood splitter. This resulted in a broken finger and a lot of stitches. Attending to his wounds was a challenge; changing bandages is definitely not a natural talent I possess in my wheelhouse. Then the poor guy got Covid after traveling to Minnesota to attend our granddaughter’s fifth birthday party.
Trying to get into the holiday spirit, I bought tickets to see the play Elf at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire Music Hall on Saturday night. However, Friday night, we still didn’t know if my husband, dealing with post-Covid symptoms, would feel up for the trip.
We woke up to a gray and rainy Saturday. My husband felt well enough to attend the play, so we headed to Portsmouth in the pouring rain.
What happened next was like something out of a Hollywood holiday movie.
That evening when we left the hotel to walk to the theater, the rain had stopped, and it was a balmy fifty-five degrees. Walking down a lovely cobblestone street, I was quite unexpectedly filled with holiday cheer. I honestly felt as if my feet were not touching the ground.
I found joy in everything I saw, from the holiday lights and decorations to the people crowding the sidewalk to watch the tree-lighting parade. The New Hampshire police association drum and pipes band playing Auld Lang Syne on their bagpipes brought tears to my eyes. Bagpipes and drums, who knew?
I heard myself say, “This is the best day ever!” The feelings bubbled up spontaneously without any effort, and I was filled with holiday cheer. For the first time since I was ten years old, I felt the true joy of the holiday season. I finally remembered what the fuss is all about.
With Love & Energy by the Pond,
Laurel
