For most of her life, she had loved Christmas.
Its colors and music and textures,
The taste and smell of it.
She couldn\'t get enough.
But, in truth, she had expected too much of December.
Too much of herself.
And those around her.
***
The day felt black,
Even though it was bright outside.
Lack of sleep was taking its toll.
She was not the same person that she had been a year ago.
She no longer had a plan.
***
Afterward, her only expectation was to live through the day
And wake up for the next.
There wasn\'t much left of her
After she sold herself away
And took the thirty pills that she\'d been given.
Christmas was the first part of her to go, that December twenty-fourth.
But other things followed;
Pushed over the edge with the life she\'d lived before.
***
She drifted in and out of the day like the curtains in the hospital window,
Moved by the air when the heat came up.
It played softly with the fabric.
But the curtains just hung there, numb to it.
She could see the colored lights reflected in the glass.
***
With the things that she was able to salvage
She tried to rebuild her life.
But it wasn\'t the same.
They couldn\'t find all the pieces to cover the empty spaces
in her heart and mind.
Still she managed to climb back to somewhere near where she\'d been before.
Even though the course of her life was forever changed.
***
So Christmas came back,
As imperfect as it was.
She waded into a new job and made other connections.
After everything
Even to hope for a baby was a miracle,
And God granted her wish.
She knew then why she was saved.
Because in those desperately frantic moments that she slept through,
He didn\'t just save one life, but two.
Hers and the one that wasn\'t conceived until after five more years had passed.
The blessing that was yet to be.