I hope you have...

This holiday, I hope you have (these gifts):

- A husband who fills you with such joy, each day, you cannot imagine another day that is better. A husband who tolerates any frenzy or panic, who will hold you close when sorrow feels overwhelming, who will celebrate each accomplishment. The best is his making you laugh, always, and the burrowing feeling you have next to him. And that knowledge, the walking through fire, together.

- A best friend like I do. Someone you can call a sister. Someone whose children you can call your nieces and nephews. Someone you want to be with just as much as your partner, because she is a partner, in many senses. Someone you want to build a house for out of seed packets, grow a home for her across the street, drag her by a rope, keep her close. A friend you miss fiercely in the in-between times.


- A true sister, a sibling who you have connections with. Or someone, who you had hoped to reconnect with, and you have. Because of a wedding or a memorial, or art or reading, or nothing at all. Because of love. Because this is the person you'll always have in your life, and besides, you have more in common than you've ever thought.

- Parents who will always love you, no matter what.

- A set of grandparents to admire. Sixty three years of marriage and contentment. Two people who have lived full lives--not just happy lives, but lives of purpose, of inspiration. Two people, who, you hope, when you look back on your own life, you have inspired as well too. A grandmother, (or grandfather, for that rare male reader of my blog) who is so strong and so passionate that you can only feel blessed to be a part of her life.


- A complete set of friends, who fill you up with joy. And these friends, you miss when they are gone, you feel so good when they are there, and you can only hope you give them something too.

- A smart friend who will instruct you on the minutiae of life, who will strike sparks.
- One of those rare beauties who causes you to want to travel, to explore, to expand your horizons.
- A former colleague, though she ought to be your current colleague, because you think of her every day you show up at work, want to share stories with her, miss her, feel as if you are a little adrift without her.
- A feisty friend, one who challenges you, who shares with you.
- A friend whose talent amazes and surpasses your own, inspires you to try harder.
- A friend whose history is tangled with your own, who can take you back to days when you don't want to admit this is who you are, but she loved you then anyway.
- A few of these friends, because they are good. These friendships that are long and deep.


- A career you don't mind, or a hope for a future that you are passionate about. Hope, in the form of manila envelopes, sliding into the post office at all hours. Poetry. Literature. Linguistics. The shape of words on your tongue.

- A home, warm, perfect. Filled with books, with poems on the walls, with pets that sleep with you at night, that wait for you at the door when they realize it's your car that is pulling up.


- A love of your town. A theatre, a library, an arts center, a small bookshop. A bakery, a favorite restaurant, a small town alliance. Holding hands while walking at night in the snow. Pulling yourself up the bluffs, knowing you can, in fact, hike Barn Bluff. It's not so hard, after all, that daunting hump, and the back side is breathtaking.


I hope you have these things to fill your life. I think of Ben Folds singing "The Luckiest." I think that is true.