Eve of

War Christmas

She was born this morning around five.  I walked in to meet her and examine her.  It was as if nerve gas had gone off in the room.  Three people, completely unconscious, barely arousable to a shouted “HOLA SOY DOCTORA BISON POR FAVOR PUEDO EXAMINAR A SU BEBE?”

She has curly black hair and looks like what angels might when they’re born.  Or when they spring fully formed from their father’s foreheads.  Or however angels regenerate.

She has a stork bite mark on her forehead.

She barely rouses when I uncover her to check her belly and hips.  Together we wrap her again and she goes back to sleep.

Oh, yeah, my dad is with me today.

He came to follow me on call.  We round together and discuss the cases.  I push aside the nagging worry of appearing incompetent in front of my father, and it’s really fun.  It’s also lovely to talk through the cases with someone else again.

On the way home for lunch we talk about illegal immigration.  We’re of the same mind on this one, I think.  Like, seriously, America, can’t we move on?  These are people.  Most of whom contribute to society.  Most of whom live in what used to be Mexico.  All of whom just want a better life for their children.  Just like me.  Just like you.

Mom’s not convinced.  We talk about their difficulties of the last four months. 

At home we make enchiladas.  My 22-year-old brother wants us to help him decide whether he’s a republican or a democrat.

Dad:  “How do you feel about gun control?”

Buddy:  “There should be less.”

Dad:  “Okay, then you’re a republican.”

Dad:  “How do you feel about women’s right to choose?”

Buddy: “Women shouldn’t have any rights. (ha ha snicker snicker.)”

Dad:  “Then you’re republican.”

Mom (staunch republican): “That’s not a republican value!”

Me:  “Right. He’s an Iranian.”

Later, doing dishes, Mom tells me how upset she got with my father a few months ago, how she almost thought of leaving, for good.

Really?  Mom?  I thought I was the only one who had those thoughts. Months ago now, but still. 

Is there hope for any of us?

I wrap gifts for my kids and can’t help thinking about all the overflowing heaps in dumpsters and landfills and fragments of plastic and worse that all these toys will be in just a few years.  And how so many other mothers’ children lie awake tonight, hungry, without a roof over their heads.  While my children fight over their mountains of belongings. 

But these plastic playthings will outlive any of us.  And since we’ll all die soon, does any of it matter?  The toys, the trash, the hunger? 

God, these are not very Christmassy thoughts.

My heart feels like a noiseless patient spider, sending forth filament after filament until the ductile anchor hold.  No, wait.   That’s Walt Whitman.  Actually maybe it’s just a vagrant, tired, unsettled.  Ideas and yearnings burgeoning, just about to be born, if they could only be organized.  Searching still, nightly, looking for a home.  Or maybe just a hotel room.

The family, all of them, bundle up to walk to the downtown festival of lights.  I put on my coat but drive to another home of sorts, the place where life so often begins and ends. 

Three ambulances stand between me and the back door.

Baby Guadalupe was not in a hurry.  We sat together for more than an hour before she decided to meet us.  But she was beautiful, quiet when she came, eyes wide open.  A family of 20 descended immediately upon her and her mother as I departed.  “Feliz Navidad, y que Dios le bendiga.”

So what can we offer this new innocent wonder?  What do we have to give this life?  Just fragments and plastic, war abroad and domestic disputes?  Parents too tired, from mundane struggles, to make this world a better place?  Minds full and spinning and with television and coffee and bills and weekday and weekend.  Feuding, fighting, acquiescing, quietly stewing.  Rotting, decomposing, dying.

No.  It has to be better than this.  We have to make it so. 

The cold is bitter, dark as it greets me.  My car and I speed through the night.  As I pull into the driveway I see a dawning glow. 

GB made me my own set of lights.  The luminaria glow alongside the path to our door.  I feel the heaviness lifting.

Peace. On. Earth.