SILENCE

“...there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.”  (from Revelation 8:1)

As a kid, the question you’d get the day after Christmas was, “whattdidja get?!”  Then, everybody would rattle off the litany of all the things they’d received.  

I almost called this piece “whattdidja get?!”  Instead, as I write in silence on an eerily quiet Tuesday morning, I decided to call it, “Silence”.

I did get a lot of nice stuff.  I’ve wanted Howie Carr’s book, “The Brothers Bulger”, and my son gave me an AUTOGRAPHED copy of it- hardcover, no less!  (I’d have bought a paperback for myself!)  I got lots of nice clothes.  My two pair of jeans (not counting my horribly old pair that gets used for painting and cutting the lawn) are ready to be thrown out and now they will be, for I got two nice pairs (is it “pair” or “pairs”??) of new jeans.  I got some new shirts.  I got new pajamas.

We “made the rounds” to relatives homes yesterday.

Some of you (especially those from the church I pastor) will know the story I tell of the reason my late brother’s photo was never in his high school yearbook.  It was because of a very stupid comment I made.  Eddie died in 1983 at the age of 27.  The matter of his photo not being in the yearbook because of me has always bothered me.  Well. my sister Dianne gave me a beautifully framed portrait photo of Eddie taken very shortly before he died.  The photo is “him” much more than a high school photo would have been. He’s wearing a distinctive hat, and a denim shirt and has his distinctive expression.  (Eddie looked nothing like me, he DID look something like my sister. )  Dianne was extremely emotional handing it to me, saying she hoped it would help heal my feelings of his photo not being in the yearbook.  Dianne also gave each of my young adult daughters quilts that had been started by my mother years ago.  She had them professionally completed at a quilting shop in Walpole.  The quilts were presented as being from their grandmother.  And my son Jon was given Eddie’s antique clock.  It was a very emotional time.  

When I got home, I just had to take a walk, and I’m glad I did.  I was exhausted, and after over eight hours sleep, I’m still exhausted this morning.  During the walk I reflected on why at Christmas we cram at least a week’s worth of energy and eating and visiting into one day.  “It’s like a week crammed into a day - ON CRACK!” I thought!  Don’t get me wrong.  It WAS a very good day and a day to remember.  But I find (and I know 52 isn’t old)  that honestly I just can’t handle ALL that stuff happening in one day the way I could twenty plus years ago.

In her early ‘80s contemporary Christian hit song, “So Glad”, Amy Grant describes herself as “happy/sad”.  That’s how I was on Christmas night: “happy/sad”.  I AM fortunate to have today off.  Each of my young adult kids is working today .  I’m glad I don’t have to, although in the period between Wednesday and Saturday (because of “end of the year” record keeping, etc.) I have to try to do eight days worth of work in four, but I guess I’ll just have to get on with that tomorrow...