Perfect Cards
"Tis the season to treasure memoirs. The first of true Christmas stories
” Wanna switch places? There’s more spouse Christmas cards on my side.”
The diminutive man next to me glances up. His gravelled voice speaks solemnly of his ailing wife, now unable to walk and nearly blind.
He’d been a logger, navigating from log to log before becoming a fireman. Now, this elderly once muscular gentleman tenderly navigates his wife of seventy years throughout their home.
After listening to his life story, I wish him luck finding his perfect card. As I hurry away to finish shopping, he reaches for another.
Later, as I pass the card rack, I see he’s still there, still reading, card after card after card, holding them close to his failing eyes.
He solemnly glances up, his ache glistening on his streaked face.
As one, we move, embrace.
“The words don’t say what she means to me.”
This ninety-two year old gentleman incarnates the best of our humanity.
His life story won’t be featured on YouTube shorts:
“Frail elderly man, hunched reading every single card,
To find his perfect one.”
His quest won’t receive one million likes.
His heart yearns for only one.
He lives life’s enduring, endearing, everlasting gift.
He embodies what we all wish for at Christmas, in life.
He is the perfect Christmas card.