November 27^th. She wakes heavy with thoughts of Christmas.

Light leaks dim through the slats of the shades. Dim light she senses through closed lids. Like the sun is a low watt bulb. Not fully day. She could sleep another hour, or maybe two. It’s early yet, but day is coming.

No use trying to sleep now with her brain crossed over from soft dreams to dim reality. No use at all once her joints, her eyes, her skin have come awake.

It’s a shock to her body, this act of waking. For how long it’s been this way, she doesn’t know. Doesn’t remember. For, with passing years, memory slips away as other comforts do.

The body shock isn’t the worst of it. That will pass, she knows. A little stiff and achy movement will lubricate the joints. A few sticky blinks and rolls will do the same for her eyes. She has faith enough to make these small movements. To execute without fear of failure.

Or, only a little fear. Not enough to stop her from trying.

It’s the heaviness of Christmas that presses her down into that kind of fear, piled as it is upon the daily weight of lagging behind in the ordinary, daily things.

Unwashed dishes in the sink. Wrinkled clothes in the dryer. A half-written grocery list and last week’s vegetables molding in the fridge.

The longer she lies here, scratchy eyes closed, the longer the list of undone duties grows, leaking into her consciousness as the ever insistent daylight leaks in through the blinds. A 50 watt bulb now.

And Christmas on top of it all. A whole house to decorate by herself. Gifts to buy. Parties to attend. Children and grandchildren to visit. Treats to bake. Meals to cook.

November 27^th and here are the days of December, already spent and overspent in her mind.

The hardest thing, though, the heaviest thing, is the memory of delight. The memory of glad expectation. The “should” of glad expectation.

She should know better. Should be better.

For she knows the grinchy turnarounds. The “God bless us every one” exclamation point that is the actual point of the season in the end. She knows it, but she doesn’t feel it. Not lately. Not this year. And there’s no good reason why she shouldn’t feel it this year. No new grief. No torn relationship.

She lies in her crusty thoughts, crusty eyes shut. Reality of ache and pulse and scratch. Of day coming on unstoppable. The minutes jamming together and together so she’s more and more behind the longer she lies here.

Her stack of books is less than an arm’s length away. Bible, devotion book, prayer book, prayer journal, gratitude journal. The lifelines needed to pull her up and out and into day these days. Up from the heavy downward pull. Out of her heavy, hopeless, overnight shame. Into a better, truer story. A story that exposes the early morning lies as lies. These lies, first thing in the morning, feel so much like truth.

So close, those books. Less than an arm’s length away.

But she has to move her arm. Has to flick on the bedside light and lay a hand upon the pile.

And before she can do that, she has to believe a better story waits.

Has to, at the very least, remember she believed such a thing before she fell asleep.

It seems impossible now and she wonders if today will be the day she doesn’t fight through… if this will be the day she just lies in bed and lets the undone things stay undone. Lets more pile on. Lets the whole thing avalanche and crush the last surviving bit of “have to” she holds in this unglamorous battle she fights armed with a pile of books on her bedstand. The “have to” that gets her reaching and reading and up and out into all the ordinary mornings.

The “have to” that’s gotten her through all the Christmas-is-coming days stretching back and back to the time when thoughts of Christmas were delight instead of burden. When she had a “want to” instead of a “have to.”

The idea that this could be the day she gives up doesn’t scare her as it perhaps should. No. This is, in fact, the first hint of relief she’s had in the minutes she’s been lying here with achy joints stilled and crusty eyes closed tight.

Only this can’t be the day. There’s the rhythmic, grinding swirl of her husband making coffee downstairs. The sizzle of batter on griddle. Pancakes.

Their daughter the pancake lover, she remembers, is here for the end of Thanksgiving weekend.

Today can’t be the day she doesn’t get up and out.

She’ll have to see people today. She’ll have to fake interest in life for another morning.

She needs those books, less than an arm’s length away. Not so much for herself—not for the woman who believes she would welcome the relief of giving up and giving in. She needs those books for the slim hope that they could make of her a woman who can indeed eat pancakes with her family on a late November morning.

She rolls her eyes with lids closed, breaking the dry seal. Unrolls stiff fingers. Presses them against the lids, feeling the soft bump of iris going by. A hard squint and, with the aid of her fingers, she opens a slit for the light to come in. The hardest part is done.

Reach.

Click the lamp to life.

Arrange pillows against headboard.

Lift gratitude journal and pen.

The hard work of remembering.

Then, at last, list thanks for yesterday’s gifts.

November 26, 2023

1. Thanksgiving leftovers
2. Family walk to the craft fair
3. Hugs from kids and grandkids
4. First hearth fire of the season
5. Bedtime prayers with my college girl.

Only five things, but it’s enough. She lays aside her gratitude journal, picks up the prayer book, Every Moment Holy.

She reads “A Liturgy for First Waking.” The one asserting she is not the captain of her own destiny.

Oh, the surprising good news of this reminder. She is not in charge. She does not belong to herself. She is Someone Else’s problem to deal with.

She reads aloud the words asking Him to teach her to shepherd small duties with great love. She prays on through, the prayer shifting her burden of self over to Another, exchanging her own unbearable shaming, heavy, hopeless, bossing of herself for a bearable yoke. One perfectly fit for her by a Good Master.

And the call comes up the stairs on the heels of pancake steam and bacon hiss. Her youngest child’s voice, “Breakfast is ready!”

Prayer words linger. The small duties of this day…

1. Breakfast with husband and daughter.

And then, perhaps, one box from the attic. One small box. The one with her daughter’s favorite creche figures. Perhaps she can ask for help, even, with that one small box.

She rises from bed, wraps soft into bathrobe, slips into slippers, walks down and sits. Three pairs of hands clasp in prayer over pancakes. Then the glide of buttery knife along softly browned surfaces. She  proposes the idea and her daughter offers a willing and syrupy smile. Her husband offers breakfast cleanup and Christmas tunes.

And she, who had nothing good to offer in the dim almost morning, offers this one small duty.

Offers one small box of Christmas.

Offers one small thing with great love.