Brings a Bit of Healing Magic
There’s nothing like a Christmas movie to bring the magic of the season to the present moment. Tonight I watched The Christmas Chronicles on Netflix which brought alive memories of the Spirit of Christmas from childhood—an enchantment!
I recall just a few of my childhood presents…my Toodles doll is still real for me…the surprise of it!
But the glittery, shiny, blinking lights on a fresh smelling tree takes me right back to the time when Christmas magic was truly surreally-real for me.
Surprising magic arrives occasionally in my grief, too.
I was made for magical thinking in regard to death. In my giant Familia we never let go of the dying or the dead. If someone went to a rest home because the folks at home could no longer care for them, it was a long slow decision as we believed they should be with us. When we had to give in and trust the rest home on Arizona St. in Santa Monica, Auntie created a rotation list so our loved one would get a visit from a family member at least once a day. The visits also included picking up their laundry and returning the clean clothes from the week before.
When they died, there were masses said, photos featured, and stories galore. Small wonder that my dead relatives were more real to me than Santa.
When my beloved husband of 51+ years died, the stakes were higher than any other death I’d endured. The impact of the loss of his presence in my late sixties was life-changing in so many ways that for a while I lost my ability to know where to begin each day. I was in a fog.
In spite of all that, I was ever on the lookout for Dan Neff.
These eyes of mine were trained early for this process.
Did you see that butterfly that flew into the garage just now? Look! It must be your dad!
There’s another monarch, reminding me that your dad is thinking of me.
Pick a word without looking? Okay. The word “protection” came to me.
Of course it did!
This week my husband showed up as a monarch colored flower made of glass.
Honestly, you can’t make these things up.
Bullets required for time and space.
- Lost present for an online Secret Santa sort of thing
- Unidentifiable box arrives an hour before the Santa meeting
- I open the gift to check and find note: This gift was made by Dan Neff
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- Whhhaaaatttt?
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- This is the Gift
- A second note in the box says, “Dan Neff is the artist who created this flower.”
- So, of course, I go online and look up “the artist”. . .
- “Dan Neff grew up in Minnesota’s Iron Range, where he still lives today. At 11, he began working for his grandfather, a stone mason, which fostered “a deep appreciation for skilled craftsmanship.” He took his first glassblowing class at 17. “I was hooked,” he says. Eventually, Dan gave up “virtually all of my other passions” to dedicate “every spare moment… to the mastery of glass.” He’s inspired by “the water and the changing seasons” and strives to “emulate the palette of the outdoors” in glass.”
- I look further….just like (as a kid) I looked for Santa’s magical reindeer on Christmas Eve!
- A card shows up at the bottom of the box:
Flower of Strength
Inspired by orange frangipani and calendula (a flower that has been used in treating wounds) flowers that symbolize strength.
The gift, the meaning, the name. Whoa!
