A Christmas Miracle
written by: Kathy Welsh
It was Tuesday, December 22nd, 2020, and we had had a Christmas Miracle. It was the night that “The Star of Bethlehem”* the bright star in the Eastern sky that marked the place of Jesus’s birth was to be visible with the naked eye. While there are many theories on this, was it a comet, was it a supernova, the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter etc., its theological significance endures and that year in particular we needed all the distractions we could get.
Covid had hit in March and left us feeling gutted. It had been spring of our daughter’s junior year; she had gotten the lead in the school musical, was planning to travel to Europe with her orchestra friends, not to mention prom. Little did we know that losing out on those opportunities and rights of passage and the grief that ensued would pale in comparison to what else Covid had in store for us. Nevertheless, as a family we got on the “let’s go see the Star of Bethlehem” bandwagon and began planning.
It was to be visible for two nights so in case it was cloudy we would have a second chance. The first night, Monday, we tried but we had been less than successful. While we had given it our best, we had failed and worse yet, fought about it. Looking back on it, it seems it was doomed from the beginning.
First, we were over an hour late because we hadn’t realized the clock in the van was off. We were still trying to catch up with daylight savings and hadn’t bothered to look up in the manual the correct sequence of how to push the buttons on the dash:
set up,
select/reset,
clock,
then select/reset again,
info,
back to set up,
back to select/reset,
shift down to return,
hit select reset
to adjust the time. I think the problem was we only ever tried to do it while driving.
Regardless, we thought we had time to burn and consequently stopped at Panchero’s at the request of our daughter so she could have a chicken quesadilla fix before traveling on to a large pond south of town for a less light-polluted view. Paunch, as it was known in the teen vernacular, was not a regular stop for my husband and me so ordering was a bit like guessing a lottery number. I thought I would play it safe and go with a burrito. I know what a burrito is, I have had a burrito and I have even made them or so I’d thought. However, what I got was the size of a small baby – swaddled in foil and packed full of rice, beans and meat. And it was impossible to eat more than a few bites without silverware. Which was too bad for me because I hadn’t grabbed any and I was starving. Before long, I had to give up and I just stuffed the partially gnawed gigantic foil wrapped baby-like burrito into the drink holder as if it were a super-sized drink from a convenience store.
Anyway, the park south of town was a good spot for star-gazing. However, the lack of lights also meant it could be kind of tricky to see the more terrestrial bits- the road, parking lot, boat ramp etc. In addition, on the way there we realized that the van’s clock was a good hour off and we had more likely than not, missed it. Yet we continued hurriedly (some of us irritably) on our way. We pulled into the park and then into the parking lot. While there were others there, no one had their lights on and our headlights seemed like an affront to what was most certainly some people’s Winter Solstice celebration. Hastily we turned them off.
But we hadn’t yet stopped the van and that’s when the shouting ensued. It went something like this, “STOP! Turn the lights back on! We are going to end up in the pond!” Followed by shouts of denial, “Just calm down. I know what I am doing. I know how to drive!” And then more accusations that went something along the lines of “Do you have cataracts? When was the last time you went to the eye doctor?! Are you even wearing your glasses?!” After the clamor died down among the three of us about whether or not going into the large pond was an actual threat or not – to be fair the tumult was partially fueled by hunger because of the inability to eat the baby-sized burritos – we conceded that we had indeed missed the Star of Bethlehem.
As we continued on our trek back to town to look at Christmas lights, an optimist in the group – not me – had googled that it was going to be almost as visible on the following night and we would be sure not to be late then! Somehow we managed to salvage the evening as we toured the annual holiday lights competition in the Lucas Farms Neighborhood part of town. We were delighted when we saw a dog barking at us in rhythm as he jumped up and down like he was on a po-go stick over a tall wooden fence. We enjoyed this so much that we drove by twice just to see the doggy go up and down; up and down. My favorite display was a Moffit house decorated in je ne sais Charlie Brown whimsy with loosely strung lights around the perimeter of the property and on an old VW van in the driveway – the Scooby Doo van comes to Iowa City.
As our evening tour of the holiday lights wound down, (and I knew that getting home to a plate and silverware was imminent), I began to do some mental note taking: #1. If I ever have to go to Panchero’s again, I’m going to do what my daughter said to, the first time – get a bowl #2. Tomorrow night I’m not gonna go see the Star of Bethlehem with my husband and daughter.
So on the next day, conveniently, I had been assigned to lead the class review for an online Korean course I had taken that fall and was to continue in the spring semester. It simply would not be possible for me to go along again to see the bright pu lan ets in the southeastern sky. Oh well, I felt relieved and continued to FB message the local Korean Taco Truck entrepreneur who was helping me type my slides in Korean for the review session.
My husband and my daughter had made a plan via group family text to leave at 4:50 pm to the same pond south of town. So when my daughter and her friend rolled in at 4:45pm, each with gifts to wrap for another friend’s birthday party that was later that evening, I just went to the basement and locked the door to let them sort it out how that timing was going to go. I was 45 minutes early for my review session, but that was a small price to pay to not have to deal with my child’s demands: Where’s the scissors? Do we have birthday wrapping paper? What about tissue paper? etc. Not to mention not having to deal with my husband coming back into the house from the van repeatedly to see if our daughter was ready or not.
I went to my Google drive to find the slide show that I had been preparing for this evening’s class. I had paid Nic, the local Korean Taco Truck entrepreneur, $25 to type up my slides in Korean while I added the visuals. En route to my G drive one of the first things I came upon was a homecoming picture of my daughter and her lifelong best friend, Emma. They had bright happy smiles and were dressed to the nines going to the homecoming dance with a group of friends that included respective beaus. It was a rainy chilly Saturday late in September and coincided with a niece’s wedding which my husband and I attended. So I had given the reins to Carmen, Emma’s mom, to chaperone the group while they got ready and ate pizza at our place. Emma and Francesca had gone to every homecoming together, freshman, sophomore, and junior year, so it was a relief that there had been no homecoming this year. It would have been simply unendurable.
Emma was one of those amazing, easygoing kids that you felt grateful to have around your kid. Often she would sit down at the piano and start playing and singing at will, lighting up the room and everyone’s mood. She was polite, thoughtful and helpful. She always managed to seem to find a way to contribute whether it was picking up the kitchen, getting my own kid to pick up after herself, finding the things we always seemed to be misplacing such as the car keys, the remote etc. In addition, she would eat whatever you put in front of her-without complaint. You could even argue with your spouse in front of Emma, which I remember doing on more than one occasion. Emma could roll with it (and you could laugh about it later). We never worried when our daughter was with Emma; she had a good head on her shoulders and was not one to get carried away by group-think. Losing Emma was the part of Covid we were never going to get over. There was no consolation and there never would be. It was just something we all carried around with us in the pit of our stomachs, never quite being freed from the ache, the shock, the horror of losing someone so young and so quickly who had so much to live for.
As I continued to scroll through the pictures from my daughter’s sophomore-year homecoming with Emma and other friends, I once again compartmentalized all the sadness and grief, in order to get on with my review session. After about an hour, my husband and daughter returned home. As an experienced online course taker, I still had the door locked, but I could see and hear activity around me and sensed they were still looking for the planets (aka the Star of Bethlehem). My husband, at least, wasn’t done yet. Sure enough, I soon caught a glimpse of him in the front yard with the telescope looking towards the southeastern sky. He told me after my review session ended that he had been able to see The Star of Bethlehem from home before it slipped below the horizon and that they had gotten a good view of it from Terry Trueblood with no drama about driving into the pond.
I was happy for them and ready to get on with some holiday preparation. Although it would be nothing like in previous years. We wouldn’t be gathering with friends nor family, our son couldn’t return home from graduate school in Europe and our daughter, Francesca, would be working at local take-out Pizza Hut on Christmas Eve night for the distraction from missing Emma, socializing, her senior year, her cherished school activities, etc. and all the age-appropriate activities that had been canceled. During that year of “Hut Life” she always came home reeking of saturated oil. We didn’t let her sit on the furniture till she had changed. Her Pizza Hut clothes had to be washed in vinegar and she had to leave her hat in the garage.
As borderline miserable as that job was, we were still grateful that she got to leave the house and focus on something besides Covid and all the havoc it continually wreaked on our lives. Even though we knew she would be working late on Christmas Eve, still we were determined to try to make something of the holiday. We too needed to distract ourselves from missing Emma, from witnessing our daughter’s continual covid-caused losses, from missing our son, from our pandemic-initiated job insecurities etc. However, because all the stores were closing early these days due to the pandemic we needed to go to the grocery store before it got too late.
But my husband couldn’t find his glasses anywhere. After a few minutes I began my queries and the usual ensued. “When did you last see them?” “I can’t remember.” “Were you wearing them when you drove back from Terry Trueblood?” “I think so.” “Then obviously you took them off to look through the telescope. Are they in the garage? On the front steps? In the tree house?” And so on.
So, as is often the case in our house when something needs to be found, we got out the double XX chromosomes (our daughter and me) and started to help him look even though my husband misplacing his glasses was somewhat of a chronic issue in our house. Sometimes we had patience for it, sometimes we did not. That night however, filled with the Christmas spirit Francesca and I readily helped with the search but alas it was to no avail. Francesca had to go to her party and I was getting worried about the store closing so I suggested that we just get on with it and find them when we come back. He agreed.
We said good-bye to Francesca as she left, none of us talking about the obvious. About how it would be for her to go to an annual birthday party with her tight-knit friends without Emma. While we no longer talked and cried about losing Emma daily, it was always there, hanging in the air-acrid and pungent like a devastating fire. Instead we got into our car and as I backed out of the garage, I thought to myself, “I hope Bart’s glasses aren’t in the driveway.”
Now, you might be thinking at this point, that I ran over the glasses and the miracle is that we didn’t have one of those colossal holiday blowouts fueled by unrealistic expectations and Covid-related grief. While that could have happened, fortunately this story has a different ending. As we got to the end of the driveway I saw a shimmer from about half way down the driveway reflecting off the headlights and I felt a combination of hope and “uh-oo.” Bart, next to me in the passenger’s seat without his glasses, saw nothing. When I told him what I had seen, he didn’t hesitate to get out of the car to investigate. And low and behold – a child was born – whoops wrong miracle, he came back to the car wearing his perfectly intact glasses saying, “I must have set them on the hood of the trunk while I was setting up the telescope.”
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
*Please don’t refer to the alignment of Saturn and Jupiter as anything to do with “stars” around my husband or daughter or they will tell you in the most patronizing tone “They are called pu-la-nets” before allowing you to continue with what you are saying.
Emma Lore Nugent left this world on July 6th, 2020. She had just turned 17 in May and was looking forward to her senior year of high school. The void her absence leaves in the world is immeasurable and will always be palpable to those who knew her.
- A Christmas Miracle - December 22, 2023
