Miracles

Our christmases together have always had a strange kind of joy. Not exactly festive, but deeply, oddly happy.

My last one before was the last one with the ex, a fraught and strained season of fear and trepidation. We exchanged t-shirts with humorous mottos. Wasted, pointless and disposable.

Christmas of 1990 D and I were at Fort Carson, waiting to be sent to Gulf War I. We'd taken leave together the week before, to allow slots for those with children, and close family, to return to Salt Lake for the actual holiday.

The regular Army was not best pleased to be hosting a National Guard unit, and had been making access to their chow halls less easy. That day, they had not offered any meals. We found out there had been a brunch, but only after the hours were finished.

No cabs ran on base that day, none of the usual pizza or chinese food places that delivered were working on Christmas. The perhaps-fifty of us there were eating through the care boxes sent by families, who assumed we were not getting enough sugar or booze. By evening, the hunger, and sugar buzz, was becoming miserable. I knew better than to drink on a sugar coated empty stomach, and D didn't drink at all. Oranges appeared, as though a Christmas miracle, and D and I grabbed several, and ran off to eat them together. We kept each other's spirits up, that day. I still felt this was the best Christmas I'd had in many years, and much better than the one preceding.

Our only unbreakable tradition after was to always have food on Christmas.

One year, we soaked at Lava Hot Springs. Snow falling as we simmered outside in the steaming pools. That night at the hotel, even the staff went home. We know there was one other set of guests, but we never saw them. We stared out at the dark night, cozy and quiet. He played his guitar, and I sang a bit. We ate tunachicken (that chicken spread that comes in a can) and oranges, crackers and nuts, enough food brought in case nothing was open.

The next morning, we woke early, as we do often when we visit there, and decided to head home, to visit his parents for early Christmas afternoon. The light was grey, and the fog thick as we left the tiny town tucked into the volcanic mountains. On the freeway, the light glowed gold, and as we looked through the clouds on the horizon, the sun showed - half bitten through. Oh, yes, we'd read there would be a solar eclipse, partial. And had forgotten. But got to watch it through the scrim of cloud, that peculiar light of rolling, snow covered, southern Idaho.

Miracles all over the place, and ephemeral gifts to carry in our hearts all our lives.