December 24
December 24
The Still Story of Christmas Eve
December 24, 2018
A Christmas Portrait
She didn’t like Christmas movies the best. Nor was her first choice a Christmas story or song.
She liked all those things. But her favorite was Christmas portraits. She liked all Christmas paintings and photos because they were still. Because they didn’t have a beginning or end.
A portrait of a Christmas tree, a dog, a cup of hot chocolate, a sled, a family gathered around the table.
The paint on the canvas, she said, which held Christmas in time. In timelessness. In the warm remembrance beyond the cold grasp of age, death and loneliness.
She liked Christmas portraits the best. This is what he remembers her telling him. And he thinks of this as he holds her photo on this cold Christmas Eve and inhales the winter night.
He stands out in the cold for a long time. Cold and still like a picture taken long ago.
A long time.
Then he goes inside.
Tomorrow is Christmas. –TK
Monday, December 24, 2018