The candlelight flickers in my December-darkened living room. Jarred red pillar candles with warm light speckle my piano by number, along with the Christmas cards of cozy families that have begun to criss-cross my living room. Edmund's favourite Christmas album is playing, the one from Charlie Brown and his lovely Christmas special. There is a quiet ache filling this space, and my 8-year-old has said once again, "It doesn't feel like Christmas." And so it has begun. That ache really first began for me when my family of origin moved during fourth grade across the continent from Kelowna, BC (where we lived for a few short months with my grandparents and spent days filled with fun with cousins, and I slept in my auntie's old pink bedroom, sharing a bed with my oldest sister Christi) to a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. I remember that winter and Christmas feeling particularly cold and lonely, as I had spent the warm, bright summer months and early fall in what had alway...
Burning eyes as I sip my coffee, foot to the gas peddle, I drive down the little mountain road toward the highway lined with apple trees. The day has been filled to the brim with teaching children, and my back seat is filled with tiny ones telling exciting stories. I poured this coffee freshly before I left our school room, as I knew that the thirty minute drive home would be everlasting. The taste of the darkly roasted beans and almond milk fills my mouth, warming my chills away. Red light. Slowing before turning onto the highway home, my white minivan stops to the oppressive light, lengthening my commute by 2 entire minutes. I just want to be at home. I want a fresh cup of coffee... I'll call Josh and ask him if he would mind taking a break at the home office to brew a fresh pot... That dear sweet husband... he's been taking care of me since we were 15 and 16 and so in love. No one knew then that 20 years would come and go, and that boy I talked to after school for endles...