HRISTMAS NGEL ?

Below is a letter written to a friend shortly after

Hello My Friend,
I find myself with some time on my hands, so let me bend your ear, mainly because in relating the following to anyone face to face, I would have to see that patronizing look that hides the thought "What does this man want from me ? " or perhaps, "Why isn't this man in a Rest Home ?"

Let me preface what follows by saying that I miss one thing above all else where I am now, and that is "trees." My sons house is located on what was former farmland, and there are few trees to be found. Few trees, thus few birds. Birds and watching them has always been a source of relaxation and enjoyment for me. Arline came to enjoy this pastime as well, and for years we fed them, fall, winter & spring in our backyard.

Over the years we attracted a large variety of garden birds to the yard. About four years before her first heart attack we were amazed to look out of our kitchen window and see a pair of Mallard ducks below one of the feeders. Since our house in the suburbs was nowhere near a body of water, the pair were out of place and a first for the neighborhood. We went outside and fed them rice and as a result these two, a female and a male came back day after day until late summer when they left.

Much to our surprise and pleasure the same two came back in the early spring of the following year, and again visited daily throughout the summer. This went on for four years like clockwork. Arline came to love these birds and her eyes would light with joy each year when they would return. They came in 1996 but after her first heart attack in July that year I never saw the ducks again. So much for the preface.

I knew this first Christmas without Arline would be difficult but I made up my mind to steel myself and tried to get in the spirit for the sake of my son, his wife and my granddaughters. I was doing pretty well or so I thought. Anyway, I was beginning to enjoy all the preparations for Christmas, when Monday the 21st, my daughter-in-law asked me to go to the local market for a recipe item.

While on the checkout line I glanced over two counters and saw a woman bagging her groceries that looked exactly like my Arline. Same hair style, same glasses and the eyes behind those glasses were my Arline's eyes. I was transfixed for the moment, the cashier at my counter had to shout at me to bring me back to my purchase. People behind me were grumbling about the delay on the express line. Embarrassed, I paid for my purchase and waited near the exit to get another look at the woman I had seen. She finally came by with her groceries and I saw her look at me with a sideward glance as if to say "What's your problem fella." She was much taller than Arline but ..... The face, Oh the face, such a resemblance. I thought about it going back home and when I came in the door, my daughter-in-law asked what was wrong. I told her about the experience and broke down, which is what I was trying so hard to avoid. I could not get the resemblance to leave my mind for the next few days.

Now we come to Christmas Eve day. Snow had fallen the night before and for the first time in I don't know how many years, we were about to have that Bing Crosby "White Christmas." I went into town to get a couple of small items for the stockings my grandchildren had hung. On the way home not far from my sons house, I noticed something in the snow a few feet in from the road. I slowed down and there sitting in the new fallen white snow was a male Mallard duck. I've lived out here nearly 6 months. Arline and I came often to visit during the years my son lived here. We NEVER saw ducks in the area. I stopped the car. The duck turned his head and looked at me. He showed no sign of being injured. He sat there quietly alone. A soft thin gray shadowline surrounded his body where the snow had started to melt from his warmth. I looked at the surrounding snow. There were no footprints to be seen in the snow, no skid marks that would have been made in landing there. It was as though he had been lowered on a line from the sky above and placed where he was resting.

"No footprints ... No skidmarks"

That's it my friend. Much ado about nothing I suppose. Hope it didn't bore you silly. But I guess this sentimental old Scotsman is still looking for answers. I'm not even sure I know what the questions are. We're not talking "Twilight Zone" or anything paranormal here, just a man desperately reading perhaps much more than there is, into two events so close to Christmas... Yet, I can't shake the notion that someone, somewhere, was trying to help me get through my first Christmas without my mate.