We reached the gate. The paint had chipped and cracked from the cold, rusted steel, but the gate remained strong and well secured. A padlock held it shut. Steve produced a key and unlocked the gate. It screeched as it swung open. We entered the cemetery.
“One winter day we were playing hide-and-seek about here. I was hiding from my friend when he saw me and started to chase. I ran though the snow up to the east end of the cemetery; it was an area where we never played. One of our friends swore he had heard the wailing of a ghost up there and we decided the place was haunted. You know how kids are.”
I nodded knowingly as we trudged on through the deepening snow.
“I ran up through there,” he said pointing to a clump of thick-stumped evergreens, “then up behind the mausoleum. There, as I crouched behind a tombstone, I heard the wailing. Even muffled in the snow it was heart-wrenching. I looked up over the stone. There was a statue of an angel about three feet high with outstretched wings. It was new at the time and freshly whitewashed. On the ground before it knelt a woman, her face buried in the snow. She was sobbing as if her heart were breaking. She clawed at the frozen ground as if it held her from something she wanted desperately—more than anything. It was snowing that day and my friend, following my tracks, soon caught up to me. I motioned to him to be quiet. For more than a half hour we sat there shivering and watching in silence as the snow completely enveloped her. Finally she was silent, stood up, and walked away. I’ll never forget the pain in her face.”
Just then I stopped abruptly. From a distance I could see the outspread wings of the weatherworn statue of an angel. “My angel,” I muttered audibly. “My stone angel.”
Steve glanced at me.
“Who was buried there?” I asked.
“Come see,” he said, motioning me over.
I followed him over to the statue. We squatted down and I brushed the snow away from the base of the monument. Etched in the marble pedestal, above the birth and death dates, were just three words:
OUR LITTLE ANGEL
I studied the dates. “The child was only three years old,” I said sadly. I closed my eyes and imagined the scene. I could see the woman, wet and cold, her hands red and snow bitten. And then I understood. “It was Mary, wasn’t it?”
His response was slow and melancholy. “Yes. It was Mary.”
The falling snow painted a dreamlike backdrop of solitude around us.
It seemed a long while before Steve broke the silence. “That night I told my mother what I had seen. I thought that I would probably get in trouble. Instead she pulled me close and kissed me. She said that I should never go back, that we should leave the woman alone. Until now, I never did go back. At least not to the grave. I did come close enough to hear her crying, though. It would tear me up inside. For over two years she came here every day, even in spring when the pouring rain turned the ground to mud.”
I turned away from the angel, thrust my hands in my coat pockets, and started back in silence. We walked the entire distance to the house before either one of us spoke. Steve stopped at his back porch.
“The child was a little girl. Her name was Andrea. For many years Mary placed a wooden box on the grave. It resembles the boxes the wise men carry in Nativity scenes. My guess is it’s the box you found with the letters.”
I mumbled a thank you and headed for home alone. I unlocked the heavy front door and pushed it open. A dark silence permeated the mansion. I climbed the stairs to our quarters and then the attic, and for the first time I brought the Christmas Box out into the light. I set it on the hall floor and sat down beside it. In the light, I could see the truly exquisite craftsmanship of the box. The high polish reflected our surroundings and distorted the images, giving a graceful halo to the reflected objects. I removed the last letter.
December 6, 1920
My Beloved One,
How I wish that I might say these things to your gentle face and that this box might be found empty. Even as the mother of our Lord found the tomb they placed Him in empty. And in this there is hope, my love. Hope of embracing you again and holding you to my breast. And this because of the great gift of Christmas. Because He came. The first Christmas offering from a parent to His children, because He loved them and wanted them back. I understand that in ways I never understood before, as my love for you has not waned with time, but has grown brighter with each Christmas season. How I look forward to that glorious day that I hold you again. I love you, my little angel.
Mother
Chapter VI
SET THE LETTER back in the box and pulled my knees into my chest, burying my head into my thighs. My mind reeled as if in a dream, where pieces of the day’s puzzle are unraveled and rewoven into a new mosaic, defying the improbability of the cut edges fitting. Yet they did fit. The meaning of Mary’s question was now clear to me. The first gift of Christmas. The true meaning of Christmas. My body and mind tingled with the revelations of the day. Downstairs I heard the rustling of Keri’s return. I walked down and helped her in.