I clipped the last ornament, the star at the top of the tree, to the bough, when there was a pop and tinkle of breaking glass. Looking down I saw the pieces of an ornament littering the floor. Moving down the ladder with care, my joints creaking, my heart breaking, I made my way to the pieces. Some were glittery and some opaque, some shiny with reflections of the tree lights, others translucent and silvery.
No particular piece replicated the beauty of the once whole ornament. Each piece, a discrete, and uninteresting shard. Tears flowed as I remembered the particular care I took over the years to shelter this ornament from harm, wrapping it carefully in tissue, tucking it into a sturdy box, layering soft wool around the box to prevent punctures or jostles that might penetrate the outer layer of the box.
This small globe of glass given more care because it was rescued from a fire that had consumed my life. I had found it laying among the ashes, intact, no damage to it's shiny, sparkling exterior. No marks or mars to it's beauty. It lay among the burnt offerings of my life. Nothing survived the heat and smoke that roared through the house that night, taking everything I counted as mine.
Except this one fragile globe of glass looking like it had fallen from the sky and nestled there serenely proclaiming that in the midst of great destruction something had survived.
What value I gave it after that. I took it out at times to stare at it even when it was not Christmas. I remembered the trees it hung on in my old home, stately and covered with tinsel and ornaments and lights, shining in the darkness; people stopping to stare at the brilliant light in the window. I remembered the laughter of family, gathered around the table. I remembered the day our daughter was born and our son and a daughter after that. I remembered the days of summer when the thoughts of Christmas were far away and the days were thick with heat and humidity. We would move slowly in the heat fanning ourselves as the sun moved across the sky. I remembered my husband, coming in the door after work, boisterous and loud, calling to the children. I remembered life in that house, an enchanted life, lived by people without care or sorrow, blessed with all that was good or so it now seemed. Staring into that shiny globe I saw love, and laughter, and blessing. All that remained was that shining ball of memory. Holding it gently my thoughts drifting across years of joy, remembering all. No crystal ball conjured up more images of happiness than that ornament from those many years past.
I shattered. The pieces of me lying in the wreckage, each discrete shard of me reflecting back the past. My daughter's smiling face there, my husband's grin when he figured out the plumbing puzzle, my kitchen warm and filled with the fragrance of bread baking, cinnamon smells and vanilla too. Our pets, cat and dog, other pieces of me laying there. The conjured images pieces of a sorrow so vast I could not contain it, a sorrow that spread around me, covered me, buried me. The pieces not beautiful but broken. Where was the soft tissue paper to wrap my heart in, the sturdy box barricade, the wool to surround and protect me from harsh jostling and stabbing pain. All that I had left was that one beautiful glass ornament; shattered.
I swept up the pieces and laid them on the tissue paper carefully wrapping them and tucking them into the box, laying the box in the nest of wool. Silly old woman I thought as I wrapped and tucked; the broken could not be restored. That small globe the only proof of miraculous survival. Whatever resurrection I believed in shattered too. I sat in my chair, broken and bowed. I turned to the tree watching the twinkle of lights and glass, seeing again in my mind's eye, those Christmases past, ones I could not reclaim. I rocked, the light from the tree growing and twisting, flaming with anger, fear, sorrow. Doused by each tear. Outside the snow fell and the black ashes of lament were covered over with white as day turned into night.
