It can be hard to hold back the avalanche of messages about spending money and stuffing stockings with more than just an orange and peppermint stick. I suppose the race to spend more is push back from a feeling of emptiness that creeps in around the branches of a festive tree, and the silence between verses in Little Drummer Boy. If we are in line at the mall we can forget that going home is not as welcoming as it might be. 

There are a clutch of people in my heart this week... people whose lives are heavy with loss, or loneliness. People facing uncertainty and pain, and crumbling marriages. It can be paralyzing merely to remember them all. 

But it is within my purview to shave the edge off of that pain. 

One woman whose child is crippled by mental illness spoke to me last Thursday.

"I appreciate that you somehow know how to put people at ease, and to listen like you care. I want to be like that too." I stopped in my tracks. Her words were sweeter and more enduring than the pie in my belly. It should have been me who was offering gentle words to her. 

It only took her a moment, and a few breaths of air to say it. But it will linger for much longer. 

Maybe I can be more like her.