Christmas Eve

This Christmas was spent alone. Our son's and families were in other parts of the country far away from our east coast home.  Casey had recently taken a promotion at the television station in Tennessee,managed to spend a few days at Thanksgiving with us along with Cindy his wife. Neil ,Amy and our four grandchildren will be arriving sometime this week. After a recent promotion he too is spending more hours devoted to work. What choice did we have. I swallowed and accepted , only hoping that  this was not the future. Holidays somehow are not the same with the absence of my children and grandchildren.
We somehow managed to get through Christmas, presents, dinner, annual Monopoly game... Chris had spent the morning searching  the internet,  had found a radio broadcast from his old Parrish in southern Indiana from  Christmas1975. We were at that mass.  A classmate of his deceased brother had a "Old Time Radio" site.  Preserved were his recordings of midnight mass from so many years ago.  A synopsis of the program listed "What Child Is This" sung by Paul his father's closest friend.  Chris's dad passed away almost three decades ago. I only knew Don a few years, but he had many friends. Paul was a frequent visitor to there home. He always had Timmy his then  teenage mentally challenged son in tow. He went everywhere with Paul.  We listened that evening to his rich baritone voice, closing my eyes I could see Paul and Timmy. I wondered if his three daughters knew of this discovery. To be able to hear there father singing again. Tears welled in my eyes as the service continued. I pictured us once again at Saint Simon's. My husband grew  up in that Parrish. He served many midnight masses. We had returned home that Christmas . Married less than two years with a young son, that Christmas one of the last spent with his father.  Soon Bernadette Paul's oldest daughter sang a solo. As they introduced each song my husband was reminded a little more of his past. Choir members who's children he went to school with.
He was once again back at Saint Simon's on Christmas Eve. The hour went by quickly. We sat and reminisced about the families who had touched our life's, Paul and Fran his wife now in heaven. Timmy and his sisters. How many years we traveled home to his mother's at Christmas with our family. Going to midnight mass together, family gatherings. I felt not alone anymore but full of wonderful memories of people who have touched my life and made me a better person. Of all the friendships I have maintained through decades and people who I love and love me. Christmas is such a special time of year. I feel so blessed to hear that voice from the past, alive in my heart.