On Wed, Jan 1, 2020 at 10:29 AM Cindy wrote:

 

“Hi Marnie-
You do not know me; nor me you. I was packing up Christmas on this lovely New Year morning in Raleigh, NC counting my blessings to put the end of 2019 behind us...my husband Bob survived emergency surgery for an aortic dissection on October 24 this year and then experienced 3 more heart surgeries and a right brain stroke between 10/24 and 11/20 and we returned home from the UNC Hospital on December 9th....when I came across an old Advent devotional booklet we made for our church, Benson Memorial United Methodists Church in 1989.  The scripture is “Return, O my soul, to your rest.” -Psalms 116:7.

 

I always try to take time out from all the hustle and bustle of the season to relax and read two wonderful Christmas stories...Truman Capote’s “ A Christmas Memory” and the other is yours “A Gift of Christmas Quiet” which I tore out of a “ladies’ magazine” years ago. I have since lost my copy of your story. I learned it was published in Redbook December 1980. …is this story available in any of your publications? I want to add it my Christmas stash. I know it gave me so much joy...and who doesn’t want joy!!!! Please let me know where I can get a copy of this. Thank you so much!”

 

I wrote back to Cindy that I appreciated hearing from her and would try to locate a copy of the story. Sadly, I no longer had a copy of that long ago magazine and the only on line reference I could find was that the issue in question was missing from the Redbook archive. Had she and her husband encountered my web site www.songsofseeing.com  which might be comforting to them both?

 

Then I forwarded her message to my nephew Paul who forty years ago was the star of the story. He’s now head of the Physics Department at a prominent university. “Paul, remember this?” Remember he did indeed, and in short order he messaged me that he had located a copy and would be sending it to me shortly. Never underestimate the research capabilities of a physics professor!

 

Cindy was delighted. “This is a wonderful gift of the new year, for me and for my husband, Bob....Your story so captured the essence of a kid tired of all the holiday hoopla who is calmed/soothed by interacting outside at what is still my very favorite time of day...just before twilight. I shall print it off and tuck it into my advent booklet for next year….Bob and I both really appreciate the rehab tips you shared in your Songs of Seeing website. We are living a good deal of that life these days- with him in outpatient rehabilitation from his stroke that happened after the 3rd of his 4 surgeries.  My cousin with MS found the pictures you have taken amazing and so did I. So calming. Thank you!” Then Cindy wrote that her cousin found the perfect music to go with the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQIPuuJLhlY

 

Nature, that miracle which is Life, is indeed the source of our soul’s rest and healing. The joy that is sharing is a lesson we cannot ponder often enough!  

No literary honor, no amount of royalties, can measure up to the sweetness of this true story, this unexpected gift for the New Year.