The Present

Posted on December 26, 2006 in Festivals

Christmas is a desolation in which people are forced to families and friends and those without family or friends are forced to their own company. I went to see my 98-year old aunt and read the Nativity account to her. She lay on her side, watching me as I turned the strong, thin pages of a pocket-sized New Testament. Outside her room, nurses rushed about and family members wheeled patients to the small sunny area at the entrance to the convalescent home.

On my way home, I sighted a lone wheel-chair bound woman sitting next to a El Pollo Loco along Chapman. She hung her head, lightly braised herself in the sun. How had she come there? Was she an escapee from another rest and care home or was she abandoned? I left her behind, a Christmas present that I did not know what to do with.

Home reunited me with Lynn — who had gone to see her grandmother — and gave me a headache.