I have
often wondered what the holiday season would be like without a last-minute dash
to the department store for a gift I forgot to purchase. Honestly, I don’t
think it’s in my nature to ever know, and this past year was certainly no
different from any other I can remember.
Three days
before Christmas, I found myself browsing through a large selection of furry
socks, the ones I always get for my wife, whether she needs, wants, or actually
uses them. I wonder about that for a moment but shrug it off, because at this
point, it is a tradition and I just do it.
Having
chosen several pairs I think she will like, I leave the women’s apparel section
and take them up front to pay. The lines are a little long but I quickly find
the shortest one, or the one that seems to be moving the fastest, anyway.
As the
line shuffles forward I turn my attention to the cashier, an elderly woman
wearing a Santa hat with flashing lights on it. Her face is withered and her narrow
shoulders are slumped a bit, but her disposition is cheery and her eyes, I
notice, are quite striking, clear, youthful, and laughing. I imagine that she
must have been a very beautiful woman when she was young.
I laid the
furry socks on the counter and she picked them up and asked, “Have you been
naughty or nice?”
“Somewhere
in between,” I answered as she turned the socks over in her hand, looking at
them with those striking eyes.
“I like
these,” she smiles, “For your wife?”
“It’s a
holiday tradition,” I answered, nodding my head. “I don’t know where they all wind
up, but I keep on buying them.”
She scans
the furry socks, but then pauses for a moment before looking back up at me. “Every
year my husband has bought me a stuffed teddy bear for Christmas,” she says
with a smile. She seems to wander in thought for a second but then places the
socks in the bag. “I have a whole room-full,” she continued. “I don’t know what
I’m going to do with all of them.” I
smiled in response as I waited for her to finish.
“But there’ll
be no bears this year,” she said, handing me the bag. Once again she paused,
staring at me with those blue eyes which, I could see, were now beginning to
shimmer with tears. Her smile slowly faded as I suddenly realized what she was
telling me.
“I lost him last summer,” she said, her lower lip
trembling, almost imperceptibly.
“I am very
sorry,” was all I could think to say. I stood there for a second or two until she
finally smiled, nodded her head, and turned her attention to the next person in
line. I heard her ask if they’d been naughty or nice as I turned to leave.
I had
barely left the store before my own eyes began to well up. Suddenly, those
silly, furry socks didn’t seem so silly anymore. And by the time I made it to
the car, the tears were flowing hard and I didn’t care who may or may not have
noticed.
I wrapped
those socks with great care as if they were the most precious of things. I
neatly filled out the tag and placed the package gently under the tree beside
the diamond earrings and the gold necklace I had previously wrapped.
On Christmas
morning, with all the opened gifts lying upon the kitchen table, I told my wife
the tale of the woman with the striking blue eyes and a room-full of teddy
bears. I found myself choking on the words as I struggled to finish the story.
“I love getting
these socks,” my wife finally said as she slipped into a pair and left the room
for a moment. She returned with a big cardboard box which she placed on the
table, removing the lid for me to see. I leaned forward to find it completely full
of furry socks. I smiled as she told me she had worn every pair, but only until
they were replaced with the new ones each Christmas morning.
