A Christmas Present I Gave Myself

I love the annual harvest of Christmas cards. If I had a more poetic bent of mind (and if it were not so near my bedtime), I would craft the perfect metaphor about sowing seeds of friendship all year long and then feasting in the cornucopia of news and pictures and warm wishes from the people I love and admire most.

As it is, I will just share one of the cards I treasured the most this year. It's a Christmas gift I actually gave myself, though it depended on the kind heart of an old friend to actually make it back to me. My very best friend in kindergarten was Emily Roberts, and she was a magical friend to have. She and I were in the same Girl Scout troop and the same kindergarten class, and we were inseparable during recess. From kindergarten until fourth grade, when we started going to different schools, I basked in her friendship, and I think I will always have a warm feeling associated with the name "Emily" because of her. When we moved into our new house a few month ago, I found myself remembering her home, just a few streets away from mine. I loved going over to play at her house. There were cozy corners and little hide-aways both inside and out, and I remember that her guest bathroom always smelled of flowers and had little soaps in the shape of seashells. I think that Emily's friendship set me up for my lifelong love of Anne of Green Gables, because her house somehow captured that old-fashioned charm of Avonlea and Diana Barry and the Lake of Shining Waters.

Well, after taking several mental tours of her house during daydreaming moments, I decided that I would write her a letter and just let her know how much her friendship had meant to me. I knew that her mom was a well-beloved leader in the Presbyterian church in the city where we grew up, so it took about 1 minute with Google to find an address that would eventually get the letter to Emily.

A few weeks later, just a couple of days before Christmas, I got a letter back from her. She included a picture of her daughter, who, it seems to me, has Emily's same eyes and smile. And she wrote about her husband and daughter and the things that occupy her day. After she'd signed off, she added a PS.

"I remember the time during Jacob's death so poignantly. It was so difficult to be at different schools and separated during that time. I remember my mom coming to my class to take me out and tell me that Jacob had died. This first true glimpse of loss was a profound experience--and witnessing your family's love and grief and bond was also profound for me. I have such warm memories of our playing house with Jacob and Rachel at your house on Palm Drive, and of stealing away for a run to the local donut shop during sleepovers at your house on Chevy Chase. The brokenness and innocence of those early days. Much love."

Why did this make me cry, even now as I transcribe it here? Emily and I had been at different schools for a couple of years by the time my little brother died, and he would have only been a toddler when she would come over to my house for play-dates. I hadn't known that little Jacob's death had even registered in her 12-year-old life, now mostly separate from mine with different schools and different friends. People are so often more tender and more thoughtful and more compassionate that I imagine they will be, and that's very humbling to me. Anyway, this is a new puzzle piece in my somewhat fractured memories of that time in our family. My best friend from kindergarten was mourning with me. Her wonderful mother was wise enough to help her daughter share in that experience, even though it was from a distance. Somehow this makes that time of loss and grief even more sacred to me.

This isn't really a Christmas present I gave myself, now that I think about it. I wrote a letter and received one back, but the real gift to me, beyond reconnecting with an old friend who is now a wonderful adult, was realizing that the love that we are capable of in friendships and families has the power to make things sacred, past and present. Thank you, Emily.

I wish I had a picture of Emily, but this is a representative picture of Mama leading one of her many Girl Scout troops. She was a second Maria von Trapp.

And this was taken right before Rachel and Jacob were born--another one of my best Christmas presents! Aslan, the lion.