Joanne Smith - The 13th Gift - Part One

We were shattered.

I found no comfort or joy in the approaching holidays, only memories that cut at my heart like broken pieces of a treasured Christmas ornament.

I stopped singing. It hurt even to breathe. I wanted to banish the holidays from our lives. But then something extraordinary happened.

Thirteen days before Christmas, gifts began appearing at my home. They were just small tokens of the holiday season, accompanied by a card with lines similar to the carol. Each was signed simply, “Your true friends.” At first, I resisted the intrusion of Christmas into my grief. But slowly, as the gifts kept arriving, my heart began to thaw. The gifts made my children smile, got us talking, as we tried to identify the source of our mysterious presents. They were teaching us how to function as a family again.

The romantic in me would like to believe a miracle touched my family that Christmas, and in a way that is true. But I know that the miracle was the way a small act of kindness saved my family and brought us back to each other. Years later, the magic of the holiday season is still colored by the light that those friends shone into our lives. Thinking of what a powerful impact those anonymous gifts made on my family has changed the way I see the holidays—not just as an excuse to give and receive presents with my loved ones, but as a time when it is more important than ever to step outside of my own world and consider those around me, to open my heart, reach out my hand, and engage. The holidays are a time to rejoice, to remember, to reflect on seasons past, and to celebrate our memories. This book is about finding a way to honor those who cannot be with us this season, to create new and joyful memories, to experience this season of giving in a very special way.

Come.

Walk with me.

I will share with you the message that forever changed my family, the healing magic of the 13th Gift.

Just before dawn on December 13, my daughter, Megan, tugs at my nightshirt.

“Mom, we missed the school bus.”

Disoriented and still half asleep, I start calling commands to my children before my feet hit the floor.

“Splash water on your face! Get dressed! We’ve got bananas and granola bars in the kitchen for breakfast. I’ll get the car heated up, but we have to leave in ten minutes!”

Megan dashes off as directed, while I rouse her less cooperative brothers.

When I hear movement in all of their bedrooms, I take a two-minute bath, swipe on makeup, and pummel my hair with baby powder to give it poof. A dark suit hanging on the back of the bathroom door becomes my ensemble for the day. The vision in the mirror is not enchanting, but at least my red eyes and rumpled clothes seem to match.

“I dare anyone to criticize,” I say, pointing at my reflection.

I check on the readiness of my three Smiths—Megan, ten; Nick, twelve; and Ben, seventeen—dig car keys from my purse, and toss four coats onto the couch.

“Two minutes,” I holler. “Everybody outside.”

I whisper a plea for even a few weak rays of sunshine as I open the front door, but instead I meet typical weather for Bellbrook, Ohio, less than two weeks before Christmas: gray, wet, and cold. It has always been the warmth of the people, our neighbors, the community, mooring us to this southern suburb of Dayton. But this December, I only feel the chill.

In my haste to heat up the car, I nearly knock over a poinsettia sitting outside our front door. Raindrops on its holiday wrapper sparkle in the porch light.

“What the heck?”

Megan peeks around me, and her face lights up.

“It’s so pretty!”

That’s my Meg: ever hopeful even after we’ve been through so much. I wish I could be more like her, but then again, I’m not ten.

“Yes, real pretty. Where are your brothers? Get your brothers.”

“Where did it come from, Mom? Let’s bring it in.”

I stand at the door watching the cold rain beat down on the plant’s four blood-red blooms. For me, bringing the flower into the house offers as much appeal as inviting in a wet, rabid dog for the holidays. I absolutely understand Scrooge now. I want to go to bed tonight and wake up on December 26. No shopping. No baking. No tree with lights. I’m not in a mood to make memories. The ones I have just hurt; I can’t imagine new ones will feel any better. I don’t expect to avoid the holiday altogether. I merely hope to minimize the affair as much as possible. Christmas is supposed to be about family, and ours has a larger-than-life-sized hole. The flower can’t fill it.

I imagine my husband standing next to the closet he lined with shelves last December. Beside him, our fully trimmed Canadian fir stands in a growing puddle of pine needles.

“You’re killing the Christmas tree,” I scolded, pointing to the mounting evidence on the floor. He tested my theory with a whack of his hammer on the closet shelf. Needles pirouetted from the branches.

“At least these shelves aren’t going anywhere,” he said. “Neither am I.”

So why am I alone?

I search for him in the shadows of the house in the hours between good-night kisses and the morning alarm, even though I know he’s not there. My back throbs from the continual jabbing of a broken coil in the sofa, but I can’t bring myself to sleep upstairs in the bed we shared. I won’t even shift to his side of the sofa.

The space Rick filled, it’s empty.

Megan needs Christmas, but I’m not ready to descend into fa-la-la land. The appearance of this flower is sure to jump-start the nagging about buying a Christmas tree and scavenging through boxes in the basement for our collection of Santa Claus figurines. I consider asking Rick’s brother Tom and his wife, Charlotte, to let the kids spend the holidays with them, just a day or two. I could hide from the season while they shower my children with gifts and stuff them with turkey and banana pudding. The kids would only be a few miles away if I got needy, but I could delegate the Christmas trimmings to Tom and Char. Delivery of the idea will be tricky. I can hear the chorus of “No way,” and recognize my voice as the loudest. I don’t want the holidays, but I do want my kids home with me.

The clock on the mantel chimes seven a.m., and I snap back into my “single mom with children nearly late for school” mode.

“I don’t know where the flower came from, Meg. But I’m not bringing it in. It’s wet, and the potting soil looks like a mudslide.”

“But, Mom, it’s a Christmas flower.”

Megan presses her plea for the plant, as Ben walks up the steps from his basement bedroom. I know he was out until nearly three a.m., and I’m not fool enough to believe he was studying. He doesn’t give me a chance to say good morning or to question him about the missed curfew.

“I don’t see why I have to go to school. Most of my friends have already left town for winter break.”

The thought of having this conversation, again, makes me weary. I want to crawl back under the covers and tell him to do the same, but it’s not an option for either of us.

“Just get your coat. You’ve already missed too many days of school.”

Megan stands between us.

“Look, Ben. Look what we found on the porch.”

I’m not sure why or exactly when, but she has become the peacemaker of the family in the last two months.

“Where’d it come from?”

Ben moves past me to retrieve the flower. I put a hand up to stop him.

“Whoa.” Ben throws his arms up in surrender, but his eyes warn me a battle is brewing. I know there are words to soothe him, but they aren’t in my vocabulary this morning.