Light For When You Sit in Darkness
The box is marked Christmas Stuff from Minnesota. It’s the first time I’ve seen the items since I chose and packed them from Mom and Dad’s estate last March.
I unpack a silly snowman wearing a red hat, a reminder of Mom’s involvement in the Red Hat Club. I unwrap homemade ornaments made from my grandmother’s buttons. I unfurl a Christmas banner my dad gave my mom.
At the bottom of the box is a scrunched-up piece of packing paper. I unwrap the paper to find a simple glass ornament, one of a grouping of four. Others in the family carefully wrapped up and took the matching siblings.
Mom probably bought the ornaments at the Walmart in town, four glass ornaments in a box for under $8. I’m not sure when she purchased them, but they hang from my memory, just as they once did from the lace curtains over the large front windows of my parents’ house. Nothing fancy—simple glass globes with a circumference of gold glitter.
Three years ago, I remember standing with my mom by those windows, watching the freezing rain streak down. It was one of many trips back to my childhood home during that season of both parents with cancer. Staring at the ice droplets collecting on the window glass, I wondered if the birthday party Mom planned for Dad would be canceled. I wondered if my flight home would be canceled.
I wondered how many other days Mom had stood at these very windows and watched the winter fall, readjusting her plans, her dreams and her to-do list.
Did that standing … that watching … that readjusting … help her in the continual storm of negative doctor appointments, lab tests and pathology results? Mom always referred to the windows as picture windows – a name typically given to fixed windows that have no operating panel or sash. Besides views of the property on the south and east, the picture windows allowed Mom to see the road leading up to their home. She could see the coming and going.
The planting. The harvesting. The change of seasons.
Grandchildren arriving to visit. Cars filled with noise and news and fun. And then the going home.
And the silence.
Perhaps this is what windows are for.
Windows in hospital nurseries. In kindergarten classrooms. Overlooking hospital beds.
On airplanes. The windows mark our comings and goings. And give a clear view of the changing.
As Mom and I stood at the picture window, I noticed the ornaments. The glass was not only beautiful, but the glitter caught and danced to any available light.
The ornaments were light catchers. The storm might have been raging outside, but inside, Mom’s glass orbs rotated with delicate beauty.
Luke 1:79 says that Jesus came as a light, “to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
On that day, Mom stood with me in the darkness, underneath a diagnosis of death, yet she was at peace. Mom had learned the secret of where to put her focus when she stood before life’s windows.
Perhaps this is why Mom didn’t pack the ornaments away at Christmas, but hung them from the curtains where they rotated on tethered strings with a message all their own.