A holiday miracle: the gift of understanding
The following March, I went to visit Mrs. Carruthers after school. My eighth birthday was coming up, and I was excited to tell her the big news. It was while I sipped on a hot cup of her chocolaty cocoa that she happened to tell me a story about Mr. Fingolde, who did have a first name after all. It was Bernard. He had a wife, too, named Pearl. And he had once been as nice as Mrs. Carruthers.
Back then, when the neighbourhood children got tired of Christmas sugar cookies and eggnog, crispy golden latkes with honey-sweetened applesauce were being served right across the street. All you had to do was knock on the Fingoldes' front door.
Like Mr. and Mrs. Claus
Clad in a white apron and a chef's hat, his round face beaming, Mr. Fingolde would half-yank, half-carry the rosy-faced kids inside and peel off their frost-encrusted parkas, handing them off to Mrs. Fingolde. In the warm, fragrant kitchen, fine Royal Doulton dinner plates sparkled beside the polished silverware.
Frying pan in hand, Mr. Fingolde would deftly drop half a dozen sizzling latkes onto each plate the minute his guests sat down. There were always more to come when a plate became empty. It was as though Mr. Fingolde's magic spatula sprouted wings.
But after 51 years of marriage, Mrs. Fingolde died of a heart attack, leaving Mr. Fingolde heartbroken. His mind wasn't the same after that, and there was no one to take care of him because he and his wife had never been able to have children.
"Mr. Fingolde was just a little mixed up and angry sometimes, because he was so sad," Mrs. Carruthers explained. She really was nice.
A new, grown-up understanding
I sat spellbound, my cocoa forgotten, as Mrs. Carruthers finished her story.
The tender, nurturing images blurred the sharp-edged shadows I had so carefully drawn. Her words served as an exorcism, the Sorcerer's broomstick that swept away the cobwebs and lit the dark corners.
Fingolde, that disoriented, spooky man who made it his business to terrify children, disappeared, transformed by the tenderness of all he had been, and his lifelong despair at not having children just like us.
That grey March, when six-foot-high snowbanks still straddled the dreary Winnipeg streets and I was seven-going-on-eight, spring came in a day. Old Man Fingolde had nothing to do with who celebrated Christmas and who didn't. Tears stung my eyes. I would help Mr. Fingolde shovel his snow tomorrow and ask him if he needed anything at the store, I told Mrs. Carruthers. She patted my head. "You're growing up," she whispered. "You're really growing up."
And as I did, the Festival of Lights became an annual family celebration, richer and more meaningful with each passing year.
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The holidays have a way of holding special meaning for just about everyone. Homemakers.com readers share the true spirit of Christmas, as seen through their eyes.
