Jim Dodds

On December 24  last year, my best friend Lauri and I went out to distribute some Christmas cookies and candy, prasad, you know. That’s when you give people stuff that overflows from the blessings that have opened up for you.

We went to several places, and then I thought of Jenny, the cashier that I always see at Shaw’s. So we drove over there, me wondering if she would be working, if she would be busy, all that. I got out of the car and who was walking right in front of me on her way into work? Jenny. It was the most perfectly miraculous right place at the right time moment and a wonderful Christmas benediction.

The next night I dreamed I was walking out of the great room stepping up into the dining room and I looked to my left and there was my wife, Judy, who’d been gone now for 2 ½ years, standing by the back door, looking surprised, as if she thought she wasn’t visible. Lauri was in the living room and it was all just a quick moment. I thought, This is impossible! And then realized I was dreaming. But it was such a shock I woke up without the chance to talk to Judy.

This is my fourth Christmas since Judy’s death. The first one in 2020, I spent alone, although I did get a miraculous gift, a wall-hanging she’d been working on that my stepdaughter finished for me. Lauri and I have shared the following three Christmases, and we’ll open our presents under my tree again, and have a beautiful time. And afterwards I’ll collapse on the sofa with a sigh of relief. I have a good friend and the precious knowledge that the heartbreak I still know blossoms from the wondrous 50 years I was blessed with. Wow. You always have to remember what Lou Gehrig said, don’t you?