MY LOST AND FOUND CHRISTMAS

It was a wretched season for me. A time when I wanted to drill a pit deep in some rain forest and bury myself till it passed. Human beings appeared from nowhere onto streets in town. Were they ghosts? Spirits? gods? Who were also joining the mortals to make merry? Prices of goods…very basic goods like rice, tomatoes shot up…no sky-rocketed! It was outrageous, the price of a fowl. The poor were bound to starve to death before the New Year arrived. Then there was the advertisements on TV, radio, those huge billboards that never seemed strong to me (after every heavy rain, a couple fell and caused whatever damage it could cause) about church crusades, end-of-year watchnight services, New Year motivational phrases and mottos that made me wonder how the lives of those people who always ripped the old year’s ‘MY YEAR OF PROSPERITY’ to gingerly paste on the butt of their cars, a boldly written, ‘MY YEAR OF TRANSFORMATION’ really were. Were those things sold to the entire congregation? What about those who had no cars? Where did they paste those? In their room?...In front of their mirrors? No, no one would see it if they hid it in their rooms. It was designed for people to see…that those enthusiastic ‘church-goers’ were going to have a year of transformation, from grass to grace, obviously. Their enemies were being warned, I guess. Whatever happened to peace and quiet in that last month of a long, depressing year was something worth investigating! The whole world seemed to shoot up in a frenzy of indiscriminate noise-making euphemized as merry-making, caroling, name them. Kids would spill out onto streets in various neighborhoods to light fire crackers…’knock-outs’ that managed to scare the hell out of me each time I heard one go off close to me. The season jumped up into a mill, got itself milled to fine grains and sprinkled itself all over my every nerve…getting into it without warning…making me want to throw up, vanish from the earth temporarily until further notice, or better still, drop dead! What was it about Christmas that got people so crazy, I asked myself every year when the craze began. And each year I stayed indoors and got no answer.

You ask why I was so bitter about the season? Well, I wasn’t just bitter people, I loathed the season with every breath I had in me. Each year was the same…damned routine! Teaching in senior high was a nightmare throughout the year. But I needed the income for bare survival so I had to live through the year. It was a miracle I hadn’t murdered one of my insolent students yet..the brats they were! I will take you down memory lane so sit tight while I make you understand how I lost my Christmas and why the loss had left me as I was…bitter, and alone.

December 1995…

I had completed my first semester of my first year in the University…I was 19 years old. Throughout that semester I had looked forward to Christmas…waited for it with bated breath. I had my suitcase, my ‘Ghana-must-go’ tarpaulin bag and my bucket, with my pillow stuffed in it. My teddy bear was grandly seated atop my suitcase and I waited rather impatiently for him to come for me…and take me home. It was late morning, I remember…and I waited, and waited, and waited…and I’m still waiting, for him to come for me. I’m still waiting for daddy to walk into my life and yank me awake, hold me in those huge military arms and tell me it was all a bad dream. I was angry with him that day; it’s still fresh in my mind. He had broken another promise, was all I could think of. He promised to come for me and it was past 3 in the afternoon and he had not showed up. I had given up; was about to find myself a taxi when one stopped inches away from me, and out stepped my aunt, whom I hadn’t seen in ages. Nothing registered…all I could think of was getting home and enjoying Christmas with my family…go to church with them…share the traditions of the season with the ones I loved. So she took me home. And there was a welcome party for me…okay; it wasn’t a welcome party…something directly opposite that. Family members whose faces I hadn’t seen in years and some I had never seen were in my house, in my sitting room, in my kitchen, on my porch, on the lawn. Mother? Where was mother? She was upstairs being consoled by other women who needed to be consoled themselves. I asked no question, it simply dawned on me…my father, the army officer…my favorite commander…my hero, had passed away without giving me any notice whatsoever! He had died when I was in the middle of my end-of-semester examinations, so they had hidden it from me; afraid the news will affect my concentration. What did it matter? The one I was working to make proud, had left without saying goodbye. Folks, that was just the beginning.

December 1996…

A year after his passing, we had all healed considerably. I still held the hope that he would come back, deep somewhere in my heart. That year, there had been a lot of changes. I had found God, on a whole new level. I was a Christian before the year 1996, but something about that year made me a better Christian. The bible had more meaning to me. Christianity became more exciting. I was eager to learn. That still small voice comforted me like never before. God had healed me. I suppose, it was ‘MY YEAR OF HEALING’. The birth of Christ was then a very important occasion for me. So I was home for Christmas again…happy that God had healed my family from the shock. It was morning…25^th day of the month. I was on my knees, beside my bed…thanking Him for keeping us safe…blessing His name for he had comforted us when we were in mourning and had given us hope that all was not lost…praising Him abundantly for making that year’s Christmas more bright. I was right in the middle of that prayer…the very last I remember praying, when I heard…the explosion…I ran…downstairs, outside…and there, before my eyes, our kitchen, which was separated from the main house, was on fire…and I was the only one standing out there. Why wasn’t; mother coming out to check what had happened, I had been thinking, as I screamed for help; having no clue what to do. Where was my kid brother? Was he sleeping through that much noise? The rest was a blur…neighbours came in, tried quenching the fire…the fire engine came moments later and got it under control. It seemed like years later, the kitchen was down to the ground…and my mother and brother had been thoroughly roasted…their bodies were locked in an embrace when we found them…had they embraced before or after the explosion? I could never know.

December 2006

Ten years, after I was orphaned…I was 30 years old…and I was married. Yes, I was married to someone I wonder now, why I loved in the first place. It was my third year of marriage and we had no children yet. Bruce understood, or so I thought. That year, I remember patting myself on the shoulder; congratulating myself for making it without God. I had left him behind in that fire that took away my mother and brother the very moment I was asking Him to protect them! If that was the luck He brought with Him, then I was sure not interested in serving Him. Those ten years had gradually turned me against the whole idea about His birth. Christmas could be anything else but the birth of one who took away my family when I knew Him. It felt like being stabbed in the back by a close friend. The betrayal one felt in such cases could not be compared with the level of betrayal I felt. I had to forget God, and I did. After forgetting him, bad things had stopped happening to me. They had stopped until that day…when I decided to do some last-minute shopping. The season had become more of a season of shopping and gift-giving and partying, than a season of God’s blessing and remembrance of Jesus’ birth. I had finished shopping…the mall was packed full with people like me who loved the holiday rush…I had nothing to do in that baby shop…I only wanted to window-shop…who knew, I was going to be a mother one day, eventually. My first reaction when I saw them was to turn back and leave; pretend I hadn’t seen him with her. But something about her caught my attention; something I was trying hard not to believe. He had his hands around her. That hand was resting on her belly…the lady was extremely pregnant, I was sure she was in her eighth month or even the ninth. And my husband was shopping with her; his hands all over her…they looked happy. I felt out of place…but I had to confront him there and then. I had braced myself for a fight but what I got was worse than that. It was a slap in the face! My husband did not deny anything. He had been having an affair with that lady, she had got pregnant; the one thing i had failed at. Divorce was the only thing in mind at that moment and I didn’t need to ask. He was actually begging me to give him one. Three months into 2007, we were single individuals again. He got married to his bitch who had given him a son, and they moved to the UK. That stole the rest of my holiday season. The Decembers in my life were bad news…bad dreams…bad times. The season was an enemy. I wished I could skip that last month of every year. Let those who had cause to make merry do so, while I started my January without them…they could catch up later.

So that’s what happened between me and Christmas. I lost it. In between losing my parents and my only sibling and years later my husband, to another woman, I lost the joy of Christmas. I lost the meaning, the miracle, the spirit and the message of Christmas. I gave up God in the process too. But someone up there, if not God, had not given up on me yet…

I think it was sometime time in April of 2008. He was new…a chemistry teacher for our science department. I had been the only one teaching chemistry for a long time..I needed that relieve he brought as an add-on. It happened that he wasn’t only there to teach but to change my life. At first I didn’t want to be friendly with him, but he is the kind of person one would automatically warm up to. So by the end of that year, we were best friends. I had told him about my Decembers and lost Christmas. ‘I will help you find it’ was what he always told me. He was set on helping me find it. Christmas that year was quiet for me, as usual. I stayed indoors; no shopping, no church-going, no partying. But something different happened. There used to be no visitors as well but that year he visited me. He came with food, and drinks and smiles. How could I have resisted. We talked for hours, finished the food and a couple of drinks. Then he begged me to escort him to a place he called home, and I did; it was his church. It wasn’t Sunday…there was no one there save an organist, behind the organ; he was probably practicing. But he played such lovely tunes. Christmas tunes I had long forgotten. The cords in my heart seemed to be attached to that in the organ. Every key he played struck hidden cords in my heart. But I was determined to keep the wall I had built around it intact. I remember asking him why he had brought me there and he said we were there to start looking for my Christmas. We sat there for an hour, I think…listening to the organist who played endlessly, those carols. By the time we left that church, my defense wall was half down. Something had nibbled away at it in that church as that organist played those tunes. The chemistry teacher, my best friend, was going to stop at nothing to get me back my Christmas.
2009 was ‘MY YEAR OF TRANSFORMATION’ if I have permission to put it that way. Safo, my best friend, had managed to get me to go to church with him every Sunday of that year. And on the last Sunday of 2009, I was at church with him, a day after our wedding...Safo was my better half.
 On my wedding day, my wall was no longer there. That wedding was different…it was a marriage with God as its foundation. I had married Bruce, my first husband without God involved and I had paid the price. Safo held my hand and guided me back to Christ…he built the strong foundation and together with me, we set up a home on it. On my wedding day that December…the altar before which I stood with him was that ‘lost and found’ shelf we have back in the school I teach in. In my new God-sent husband’s heart was my personal ‘lost-and-found’ cubicle…where my lost Christmas was. In the heart of Safo, I found God, I found love, I found the joy of Christmas. And it has never been the same…

December 2011…

I’m seated on a hospital bed…my mother-in-law just left to go get me more chicken light soup. God sent me a gift this Christmas; a son. I went into labor yesternight…Christmas eve. And my boy arrived on Christmas day…a loud package he is! It’s boxing day today, and my husband is seated here by my bed, with our gift wrapped in a blanket…reminding me of Christ’s birth…and more...in the face of my boy I see a face I have dreamt of for so many years…a face I have prayed to see just one more time…to say goodbye. But the face is here to stay…it is the face of my father…the face of my father present in that of my son…a carbon copy of my favorite commander. My December couldn’t get any better!

2012….MY YEAR OF LOVE AND OF PEACE…