Be radiant light. Shine on.
- Drew Myron
1.
When we most need light, which is to say hope, the holidays arrive. Is it chance? It can’t be coincidence that the giving season takes place during the darkest, coldest time of the year.
2.
I keep thinking of the poem When Giving Is All We Have by Alberto Rios.
We give because someone gave to us.
3.
Life is a bustle of lists, gifts, food. We light candles and trees, and wrap ourselves into folly. The days are short, nights long, and we’re clinging to any slant of light. When our need is most pressing, we get the nudge that urges us to step out of ourselves, think of others.
We give because giving has changed us.
4.
For months I’ve been trying to write about Pearl and Doris and Walt and Addie and the many others I meet while delivering Meals on Wheels.
Like small stones worried smooth, each person is now lodged in my heart. I think of the man who waits at his door each week to greet me with full-smile and small talk; the woman too sick to chat; the man with a nurse who thanks me for the hot meal; the woman who invites me inside to admire the glow of her Christmas tree.
We give because giving could have changed us.
5.
Maybe I read too much into a moment. Maybe I want to feel something other than the dread and sadness I often carry. Maybe this is nothing more than a weekly task and I’m turning a small scrap into a warm quilt.
6.
But I keep thinking of the woman who can hardly hear and barely see, whose house smells of too many cats.
Each week I’m a new mystery to solve. Still, she often gives a smile and her eyes turn a dazzling blue. She comes to life, and we laugh about nothing, and I like to think we’re both happy — even briefly.
Then she roots around the pocket of the tattered cardigan that hangs from her frail shoulders and offers me a wad of bills.
“Oh thank you,” I say, suddenly flustered and grateful and sad. “You keep that. Spend that on yourself.”
She nods and smiles, and we wave our goodbyes.
You gave me what you did not have.
* For privacy, names have been changed.
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