Holiday doesn't sound right, but Christmas doesn't sound right either. The main thing I remember about my first Christmas was that my mother's mother had died. And people were crying all over the place. I have since learned why.
When I first saw the commotion, the sadness, I was hanging out on the porch with my brother and sister, while my aunt, a Parisian woman with good looks and a funny way of talking, bathed her latest after her latest created quite a mess, which was preternaturally green and filled with discordant odors already strange to my five year old nose.
A commotion commenced with its epicenter being the front door, wherein my dear grandfather was carried into the house and up the stairs to his bedroom. He looked a broken man. He, a strong, solid man who worked his farm and raised nearly a dozen children, and who never showed weakness, was now virtually drained of Life, and seemed dependent upon the human props, crutches, that animated him toward that feather-filled bed where he was to spend his Christmas without the person who had animated him for longer, perhaps, than he was willing to let go.
Some grown-ups explained to us that our grandmother had died, of sugar diabetes. Grandpa needed some rest. You can talk tomorrow.
And tomorrow did come, after what might have been a very long night for dear Elias. And little by little, he resurrected himself, and lived more than twenty years, until the ripe old age of 98.
During this season, I hope people will think about what it is to resurrect, and why it is important to allow others to resurrect. Surely it is not as simple as the evolutionists believe in it, while non-evolutions do not. Maybe resurrection IS evolution, of a sort. In any case, both are aspects of change, which is, perhaps, the only real absolute. Other than vodka of course.
When things are great, you may wish that things never change. But when things are not so good, as in the case of my grandfather, and everyone eventually, change becomes a hope the manifestation of which may not come too quickly. Were only all changes for the better...
If evolution didn't exist, we would have had to invent it.
