CHRISTMAS SERIAL: Chapter 16
The story so far: It’s Christmas Eve, and Malaika the elephant and Uhura the giraffe, residents of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo have been transformed into friends. They have made a friend, a widow named Jean.
Jean had told Malaika and Uhura that she was not angry, only sad. But the truth was, she was angry. She was angry that Harold had been taken from her, that he’d never had a chance to retire, that they’d never gotten to spend their golden years together exploring the country in their RV.
Jean and her husband had always gone to church on Christmas Eve, but last Christmas — the first since Harold’s death — she had stayed home, hidden away in her cocoon of anger and grief. Now, wanting something uplifting, something life-affirming, she suggested to Malaika and Uhura that they accompany her to a candlelight Christmas Eve service.
The church was dark and music was playing as they entered and found their seats. Uhura and Malaika, watching the others, bowed their heads during the opening prayer. Jean listened intently as the minister told the familiar story of a great light that came to drive away the darkness.
They had all been given small candles. Once Jean’s was lighted, she dipped her candle to Uhura’s. Uhura was a bit alarmed — she did not view fire as a good thing necessarily — but followed Jean’s lead and lighted Malaika’s candle.
Jean watched as the flame was passed from candle to candle, illuminating the faces of young and old. Soon, the church was aglow with candle light. But it was the inner light she was thinking of. The light that was passed from mother to child, from wife to husband, from friend to friend. The light that all could share through simple acts of love and kindness.
The light inside her that she had allowed to dim with Harold’s death.
As her tears fell, she realized that, in one day, she had opened herself up to these two strangers next to her more than she had to family and friends over the last year.
“Are you OK?” Malaika asked her.
Jean, unable to speak, nodded.
