Mom’s Christmas Trees
When I was a small boy and when it was time, like always before, I looked out my little second story window. Out through the cold jack-frost figures, through the darkness and to the blowing swirling clouds of snow across the busy street–to that great and wonderful circle of radiant white light. They were there again!
The christmas trees had returned to red’s gas station.
And my own christmas tree was in the front room, in front of the big window. It was almost up to the ceiling and it was so very green and it smelled so sweet and special, just like I remembered.
It was a mountain of colored lights, brightly reflecting balls and other pretty things; and it was covered with wisps of shimmering-shining silver tinsel. The tinsel hung like hundreds of tiny ice- cicles on my giant tree.
Mother had the soul of an artist and her Christmas trees were simply magnificent. I wish I could remember the very first Christmas tree of Mom’s that I ever saw; but I cannot. I can only feel a wistful warm-faint-glow from a time when time was a mystery and when life was magical.
When Mom passed away in 1985 something left Christmas and Christmas trees everywhere. But for each of the past ten Christmas’s Mom has returned with a very special gift, a remembrance of love and devotion past, but not gone.
When I go to church on Christmas Eve I can never get through the singing of Silent Night without my eyes watering, my nose running, and my words choking into silence. It is then that the images of the twin giant christmas trees on the alter blur, glisten, and radiate with cherished images from my childhood.
For that moment time does not exist, the magic returns, and once again Mom dresses and illuminates not one, but two giant Christmas trees–
Just for me.
God Bless and Merry Christmas!
Dr. Tom (From Christmas, 1992)
Showing posts with label Red's Gas Station. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Red's Gas Station. Show all posts
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Red's Gas Station
RED'S GAS STATION
I will forever wonder how old I was.
We lived in an upstairs apartment where there was a little cubby-hole between a bannister, with a long and scary drop into the dark stair-well below, and a little window that looked out over our roof and across the street to red's gas station.
I didn't know about time. I didn't know about minutes, hours, or clocks; and I didn't know the months of the year or about calendars. I only knew that if I waited a long time and asked mom, "when will it be here ?" often enough, she would eventually say in a happy tone, "it won't be long now!" Then I would begin to watch out my little window.
I watched through the rain and the sleet, and eventually I watched through the glistening patterns that jack frost painted on my little window. I watched out through the snow that sparkled under the light-post and across the street to red's gas station which was bathed in a floodlit swirl of white. I watched many times each day, for “countless days”, but it did not come.
Then one tired and doubt-filled night it happened, just like before! I could hardly believe my eyes.
Out through the little frosted window and out through the night and the glistening shower of falling snow-----they were there! Bathed in a blinding glow of refracted light, they stood waiting quietly at red's gas station.
In the pure white radiance, they were a special and beautiful green, and they were as tall as they could be, and there were "millions" of them--everywhere. The Christmas trees were back at Red’s Gas Station.
It took forever-----but Christmas had come again!
P.S. Children everywhere still innocently wait and hope for the joys of similar and different miracles in their lives.
If humankind would only bless these children with the warmth of it's love and devotion, this miracle of miracles would reflect and echo for all time.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! (2009)
God Bless,
Dr. Tom
12/22/09
I will forever wonder how old I was.
We lived in an upstairs apartment where there was a little cubby-hole between a bannister, with a long and scary drop into the dark stair-well below, and a little window that looked out over our roof and across the street to red's gas station.
I didn't know about time. I didn't know about minutes, hours, or clocks; and I didn't know the months of the year or about calendars. I only knew that if I waited a long time and asked mom, "when will it be here ?" often enough, she would eventually say in a happy tone, "it won't be long now!" Then I would begin to watch out my little window.
I watched through the rain and the sleet, and eventually I watched through the glistening patterns that jack frost painted on my little window. I watched out through the snow that sparkled under the light-post and across the street to red's gas station which was bathed in a floodlit swirl of white. I watched many times each day, for “countless days”, but it did not come.
Then one tired and doubt-filled night it happened, just like before! I could hardly believe my eyes.
Out through the little frosted window and out through the night and the glistening shower of falling snow-----they were there! Bathed in a blinding glow of refracted light, they stood waiting quietly at red's gas station.
In the pure white radiance, they were a special and beautiful green, and they were as tall as they could be, and there were "millions" of them--everywhere. The Christmas trees were back at Red’s Gas Station.
It took forever-----but Christmas had come again!
P.S. Children everywhere still innocently wait and hope for the joys of similar and different miracles in their lives.
If humankind would only bless these children with the warmth of it's love and devotion, this miracle of miracles would reflect and echo for all time.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! (2009)
God Bless,
Dr. Tom
12/22/09
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