In the palm of her slender hand, she cradled the delicate ornament, a homemade trinket she had come to treasure from Christmases past. Carefully shrouding it in wrapping paper, she hoped to protect it for yet another year. She appeared reluctant to want to let it go, to seal it away, as it were. She lingered, transfixed in her thoughts, reflecting on the past but above all …hoping for a future.
Taking it all down this Christmas was different; decidedly so.
This past weekend I helped our daughter, Jessa, take down her Christmas tree. An annual ritual accomplished while she loops a song written and performed by Canadian- American musician Matthew Arnold Thiessen.
I have no idea how many times the ballad played, fulfilling its role as backdrop to the methodic formality that most of us have experienced at one point in our lives. The tune, on the one hand, seemed so wistful, with its simple classical guitar accompaniment and understated solo male voice; and yet, on the other hand, so agonizingly painful.
“Take it all down, Christmas is over
Do not despair but rather be glad
We had a good year, now let’s have another
Remembering all the good times that we had …”
“Remembering all the good times that we had …” That’s what Jessa was doing; although it couldn’t be said, like for so many of us, that 2020 was a good year. Especially for our daughter who was informed, in March of this past year, that she had a rare form of cancer that had reached stage 4.
Turning age forty-two, two days after Christmas, Jessa remains our special Christmas gift, born December 27, 1978, evidence of God’s favor, a warm bundle arriving in an otherwise brutal winter, long remembered for not only heavy snow, but for bitterly cold temperatures.
Forty-two years later, it, once again, has been a brutal, heavy and bitterly cold time in life.
Thiessen’s lyrics fill the room …
“The hearts of men are bitter and weathered
As cold as the snow that falls from above
But just for one day we all came together
We showed the whole world that we know how to love …”
Jessa, a shadow of her former robust and giggly self, sat crossed-legged in her homey pajamas, huddled over a box of assorted ornaments. As I removed each trimming from the tree and handed it to her, it became all the more significant, much like each precious day of her life. I harbored the thought, “It’s hard to put precious things away.”
I marvel at her capacity to endure as the cancer continues to overrun her body. Of this I am certain, she remains beautiful.
Our family, as some of you are aware, began presenting Annual Christmas Concerts in the Twin Cities in the mid-seventies. These concerts continued for some thirty years, originating at Orchestra Hall in 1979.
It was prior to our concert in 1991, that I wrote a Christmas song titled, “Silent Skies,” which Jessa sang at age thirteen. Her crystal clear angelic voice soared effortlessly. I recall to memory my father (Jessa’s Grandfather) and I would stand in the side wings off-stage as she sang, and involuntary tears would well up. Her transcendent voice continues to evoke such emotion.
Nearly thirty-years later, upon listening to Jessa’s 2020 solo CD release, “Serotinous Skin,” one music reviewer wrote, “I was instantly struck by Jessa’s voice. It would quickly become a highlight of this album. There is something in it that makes me want to say she was classically trained but there is also something just so organic that it’s hard to not just call it one of the most talented and unique voices I’ve heard in a while. There’s grit in her voice that draws you in with ease. That grit is followed up by pure beauty.”
Jessa’s recent performances have, understandably, grown silent.
Today, as I listen to the 1991 recording of a little girl singing these lyrics– unaware of her future journey– I cling … ”
He keeps me safe, he keeps me warm,
He is my shelter in the storm;
Someday he’ll come, he’ll come for me
And silent skies, will sing once more …”
As Jessa attentively fits the lid in place on the red and green storage tub labeled, “Christmas,” Thiessen’s hopeful lyrics soundlessly conclude their elongated progression,
“Oh, no more lights glistening, no more carols to sing
But Christmas, it makes way for spring
Oh, no more lights glistening, no more carols to sing
But Christmas, it makes way for spring
Oh, remember that Christmas, it makes way for spring …”
It was and is my earnest prayer: as I lifted the frail tree from its metal embrace, exited the door into the harsh chill of winter, and placed it in a windblown drift of white snow.
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