waiting for her yearly pap exam, was not a miracle.
It was foolish, sign that stress has taken hold
within the folds of what's contained within my head.
I returned in hours to find the door ajar, reproaching
me in silence, and the purse inside untouched,
every hard-earned dollar, every credit card I hate
but not enough to cut them up yet that was a miracle.
Finding my favorite pair of sunglasses that I'd
looked all over the house and car for, confident that
they were gone forever, gone the way of several
favorite pairs of sunglasses before them, leaving me with
ones that threatens to put an indention in my nose because
it's missing one of the little plastic clips (but still usable,
for which I've been grateful) was not a miracle,
but it was a nice surprise on Christmas Eve to walk through
a room I've walked through countless times and reach
out my hand, pick them up off a box as if I'd gone to that very
spot for just that purpose. A nice surprise indeed.
We've played lots of football games at family gatherings
for Christmas in the last three decades, but it's been awhile,
and never because my husband insisted on it. Post-60,
he talks about being old and tired and sore, but he kept
mentioning a football game until someone said to count her in,
and then another, and before you knew it we had two teams
on a field, laughing, running, letting the two
little guys make the calls and all because my old and achy
husband laid aside his preference for watching television
and took the lead, spoke up, made it happen.
And for me, to be together, so many happy people
at one time and in one place instead of the usual
stress that makes me crazy, makes me leave car doors
open and lose things, maybe it wasn't a miracle in
the classic sense, not like the miracle of Mary's
pregnancy or the angels or the star that shone
to show the way, but I'll take it.
(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013
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