December 21, 2010
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Capital Christmas
I went to the hospital and visited one of the girls from the youth center. A baby boy. She is only 15, and I have known her since she was 8. She looked so small in the hospital bad, the Colts droned on the TV above us. Her eyes were tired, but proud. under six pounds, he is too little for me to feel safe holding. He has a head full of black hair that waves like fire, and every once in awhile, he opened his big black eyes and looked out. It filled the room–his innocence, his newness. The chorus of “awww” from everyone in the room, for he is the center. She is only 15, this mother, who asked me to pray for her baby.
It is less than a week until Christmas and I turn on the radio and hear it: Luke 2, read by a child. And I remember. It isn’t December 25. It isn’t the decorations and candy that have been on display since Halloween–it is a random day that someone somewhere in history decided it would be a good idea to remember an even–THE event. Of a baby being born, maybe under six pounds. From a little mother, maybe less than 15 years old.
“What are you doing for Christmas?” I ask her, and she shrugs, rocking her baby gently as all mothers do, to a special rhythm that her baby will learn is only hers. “I’m just glad i’ll be out of this hospital by then.” She tells me, shaking some formula in her free hand. Christmas isn’t this word that I see in my mind in capital letters. It isn’t this apex of the year that we plan around and hope for and set up on a pedestal. It is a lot more like that hospital room: coming to see a new life–new possibilities that were not there before. It is to remember the newness and innocence, the wonder of gifts given without our deserving them. But it is also about leaving the hospital. Of new responsibilities that sometimes cry in the middle of the night and yell at the most inconvenient times. It will be the best thing that young girl has ever known. It will also be the hardest.
Merry Christmas.
