Yeah, It's Been A While

These days, a lot of what happens in my life relates to my kids, and as they get older I am less comfortable sharing their stories.  I will write a catch-up post one of these days, but there is a story sitting heavy on my heart this Christmas week and I am feeling the urge to write about it as I process.

A few days ago, I was in a Dunkin' Donuts waiting for a coffee.  At the front of the pickup line was a woman who was loudly berating the guy behind the counter for messing up her order.  Something about whole eggs versus egg whites and then another separate issue relating to the presence or absence of cheese, I forget which.  Sure, you want your order to be correct, but the volume and level of hostility emanating from her were far beyond what would ordinarily have been reasonable in that situation.  At the time, I thought to myself that she must have already been having a bad day and that the order mixup was the straw that broke the camel's back for her.  Unfortunately, I bet it ruined the DD guy's day too.

Later that afternoon, I saw something on Facebook posted by a guidance counselor friend.  I paraphrase here, but the gist was that while the end of December is a very special time of year for many people, for others it is the most stressful or depressing or lonely or sad week of the year and that we should try to be patient and compassionate because we don't know what struggles the people we encounter are living through.  Thinking about the lady from the morning, I took that post as a valuable reminder from the universe and have been trying to carry it with me as I go about my days.

Then I heard the story that just about brought me to my knees.  A couple related to a friend of mine lost their son, their only child, in a car accident on Christmas Eve many years ago.  He had just turned 20 a few weeks before he died.  Since then, they have not been able to bring themselves to celebrate Christmas and go away alone while the rest of their family is gathering together.  As the mother of a son who can drive (one of those things that fell through the cracks of reporting here) I can't even begin to imagine their anguish, or the degree to which I would never be able to bear thinking about or seeing anything relating to Christmas again were it my own son who had been lost.  

I don't know this couple, and I'm not sure how good a Christian I am these days (given how much I disagree with virtually everything being espoused by so-called Christians) but I will be praying for that family with my whole heart this Christmas Eve.  And for the woman from the coffee shop, just in case this is a time of year to be endured for her too.