A Christmas Miracle

I haven't mentioned this before, but for the past few weeks I've been in a very dark place; let's call it my Dark Place Mood. It was caused by a number of things -- first of all, the possibility of a strike at work was heavy on my mind, not to mention dealing with my boss and another co-worker in our cube being out until March as they deal with cancer. Add to that the fact that the 'Rents announced a few weeks ago that they were anti-Christmas this year, and you've got a recipe for a Dark Place Mood. Let me explain the Rents' anti-Christmas feelings. Let me preface by saying that we are Christians and we celebrate the birth of Jesus, and everything else surrounding Christmas is secondary. That having been said, the 'Rents said with money being tight this year with the crappy economy, and the fact that the three of us really don't need anything, we would tell relatives and friends that we normally exchange presents with that we were giving a donation to the American Diabetes Association in their names. They also said that we needed to cut down on the shopping that we do for each other. At first I was fine with it, but then the more I heard people talk about shopping and presents and other Christmas traditions, the more it bothered me. My Dark Place Mood was at it's peak over the past weekend and the first of this week. It was so bad that every day I would silently wish that we could just fast forward to January 2 and start the new year.

On Tuesday afternoon, a co-worker from the marketing department came down to tell me that we have some mutal friends, Harold and Mary. The 'Rents and I had become close friends with Harold and Mary while at Fourth Avenue Baptist Church. But when the church closed and merged and we all went our separate ways, I'm sorry to say we lost touch with each other. Then we all made the mistake of listening to the wrong people; rumours went around our circle of friends that Harold and Mary were mad at the 'Rents and I because of this and that, and in turn they heard the same thing about us. Because of the rumors, we never contacted each other. But I still thought of them a lot; hanging on the wall in the back bedroom is a framed painting that Mary did for a charity auction about 10 years ago and I was the winning bidder. But I digress. On Tuesday the co-worker said that he had dinner with Harold and Mary the night before, and when she saw his coat with our company logo on it, she asked him if he knew me, and the co-worker said they talked for twenty minutes about the 'Rents and me and how much they loved us and thought about us.

I thought about Harold and Mary most of that night, and realized that I needed to put all of the rumors aside get in touch with them. Yesterday, I left a voice mail message for the co-worker asking him to give me Harold and Mary's number so I could break the ice and call them. But I wasn't quick enough. Yesterday afternoon, the phone rang and lo and behold it was Mary. The only thing I heard at first was her say "Puddin!!!" and then I heard her big, happy laugh. We talked for ten minutes, catching up and laughing over silly inside jokes; it was as if we hadn't even lost touch for 5 years. She also told me that they had adopted a baby. Before we hung up, we promised that we would get together within the week, and we also promised each other we would never listen certain-people-who-spread-rumors again.

I guess I don't need to tell you that after the phone call from Mary on Tuesday afternoon, I was out of the Dark Place Mood. I told my two co-workers about the phone call and they were almost as happy as I was. I joked with them about how this was a Christmas miracle just like the forwarded email story about the little boy buying the Christmas shoes for his mother, or the story about the boy not getting a rifle for Christmas because his parents used the money to buy shoes for some poor kids and their widowed mother. But the more I thought of this, the more I realized that this in deed was a Christmas miracle.