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The Button - A Christmas Story |
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Tuesday, 18 September 2007 |
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For as long as I had known her, the old woman never expressed so much as a word about the love of her youth. She became a widow when her husband passed away after a sudden illness in 1964. Her concerns had always seemed to be about the day-to-day business of getting by.
Times were hard after Ed died. She suddenly found herself alone, unemployed and the single parent of two young children. Over the course of a month she had watched her hopes and dreams for their future together fade and eventually die with him.
Life was hard and there were many days when dinner consisted of tomato soup prepared with water. The soup would have been too expensive if it had been prepared with milk, so she and her children learned to be satisfied without the luxury of milk.
The bill for the house payment arrived in the mailbox every month just as it always had. The house was all that she had left and she knew that if she lost it she and her children would have nowhere to go. She laid awake many nights whispering her innermost thoughts to him. Why did he die? Why hadn’t he purchased life insurance? What should she do? If only he were there to tell her what to do. He had always been one to have the answer but now he had left her all alone.
Desperate for money, she and the children spent many long days standing on street corners selling flowers to the people who passed there. Eventually she found entry level employment and could afford milk again. Her wages were low but life began to gradually improve for them. By the mid 1980’s she had made the last house payment and finally felt free of the fear of homelessness that had plaqued her for so many years.
She was 81 years old now. She was alone. She had never remarried or even dated for that matter. These days she spent much of her time writing letters and busying herself with the trivial business of living. Each day was much like the day before. She laid awake at night wondering where the years had gone. It seemed like only yesterday that she had been a young bride. As she laid there waiting for sleep to come, she recalled the young woman she had been before he left her. She felt the thrill of love again and recalled the passion she had once experienced. Quickly, as though these feelings were too much to bear, she brushed them aside and drifted off to sleep. We had never been close. I didn’t understand her and had never exchanged more than light conversation with her. She was my husband’s mother and now, in her old age, we found ourselves together more often than ever since she needed to be driven to the doctor and to the supermarket . Age had taken her once perfect vision away and along with it, her ability to drive.
This day was much like so many days that I had spent with her. When I arrived to pick her up on that mid December day she was dressed in a red wool coat. She had always loved the holidays and had worn this coat during many other Christmas seasons. As we stepped onto the porch I noticed that she was carrying two purses. She had always carried a very large purse with her but this time there was one on each arm. The extra purse was a festive green color and contained several flat boxes of Christmas candy.
As we arrived at the clinic, she went to the desk to sign in. She smiled and presented a box of candy to each person in the office, reserving one for her doctor. As the staff thanked her for the candy, they commented about her beautiful red coat.
She turned toward me and for the first time I noticed a gleam in her eyes that I had never seen before. She smiled in a way that was new to me. As she sat down I told her that her coat was beautiful. She turned to me, smiled and ran her hand over the coat. She said, “Isn’t it beautiful? Ed bought it for me one Christmas. We drove together to the big department store downtown and he picked it out just for me. Ed was so sweet. He was always doing such sweet things for me." Then she became sad, showed me the buttons and said, “I love this coat but I lost a button. I don’t know where I’ll ever find one like it."
As I sat there, I studied the coat and realized that I had seen her wearing it during many, many other Christmas seasons but it had never seemed important. Suddenly now I was noticing details about the coat that I had never seen before. It was 41 years old, yet looked as though it had been purchased just months ago. I thought about how much she must have loved Ed and how much care she must have taken to keep the coat in such beautiful condition. The buttons were large, round and carved in such a way that I knew it would be impossible to find a replacement.
We didn’t say much to each other during the ride home. As I drove, I realized that I had never really opened my eyes enough or listened intently enough to know her. To me, Ed was an image in a few photographs; a very flat representation of a man that I had never known. The photographs had faded over the years but her love for him remained strong. I wondered if she imagined his arms around her again each Christmas when she wore the coat.
Inside of this very old woman was a love that was still as powerful and as strong as it had been during her youth. This old woman was still in love with her husband. I felt an intense sense of sadness as I wished that I could replace the button.
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