Only Part of the Story

Only Part of the Story

The final days before Christmas were always a favourite time for Isobel. She had been on her own for many years. Her husband and childhood sweetheart, Oliver, had ‘closed his book’ eleven years previously the week before Christmas. He had always called death ‘closing a book’. Isabel thought it was kind of corny, but he believed that everyone’s life was a book. You could either slam the cover and throw the book away. Or, you could read each page, making notes along the margins, savouring each chapter. When he was asked how he liked the chapters with trauma or tragedy, he would just sit back and, tapping his pipe in the palm of his hand, he spoke. Then, as though he’d been preparing his answer just for this particular day, he would say: “Well, you know it’s like this. Those chapters that you call bad are not really bad. They’re just part of the story. Any good story has good and bad in it. Too much good and it’s just all syrupy sweet. Anything too sweet makes my face twist up. And then there’s too much bad. Too much bad and everybody wants to run the other direction. Toss the book away in a garbage heap. And that’s the way I see it.” Oliver would fill his pipe, tamp it down, light it and take a deep draw.

It was several years before Oliver had closed his book. The week before Christmas had become a special time. Isobel and Oliver had raised their family, three boys and twin girls, made sure they all went off to Universities and were safely on their way into their own stories. Then they made plans for how to live their lives in the now very quiet house. They did love their home and garden and had no plans to leave it as so many of their friends had. Their perception of retirement was very different from even what their children's perception. They took short trips, they had hobbies, they volunteered. They saw the world outside and the world inside their small town. But their very special time was the week before Christmas.

It began with decorating the whole house, complete with an eight foot Christmas tree that had been carefully selected at a shelter in the city. Each night, they went dancing. Dancing in the city, in their living room, at the homeless shelter, in nursing homes. As childhood sweethearts they had begun dancing together. They moved as one to all waltzes, tangos, even jive!  They had learned the Charleston and clog dancing. And they had the costumes to go with each dance. When they got  home, they went walking in the glittering white snow under starry skies.

Oliver closed his chapter early on one of those nights - oh not suicide - he just drifted away like the smoke from his pipe into night air. They had sat on the porch swing before going into the house, holding hands. Oliver had said he was tired and hadn’t danced with energy that night. Isobel looked up into the sky and saw a shooting star. When she turned to Oliver, he was gone. She sat with him like that for a while, a tear rolling down her cheek. With a quiet sob, she called the ambulance.

Her children came and stayed with her that week. Her sons danced with her in the living room. They all, sons, daughters and Isobel, made the rounds to the homeless shelter and the nursing homes where they danced with residents and those coming in from the cold. Now Isobel was on her own, her children scattered around the globe, like Oliver's books she was packing away. She continued with all that she and Oliver had done. The tree was smaller, the decorations were not as extravagant and she missed her dance partner. Dance music still played. There was a quiet walk in the crisp night and a tear still fell. Isobel smiled and still loved the final days before Christmas.

“Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.”

~ Mitch Albom