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We have mourned this year. This year of cascading losses and stunning realizations. Our abiding trust was challenged: in facts, in truth, in the strength of our constitution, in our democracy, and our sense of community. For many, too many we also mourn the personal losses of family and friends. Our shared grief merges with those hundreds of thousands that have lost loved ones to this deadly virus.

So, how do we go forward? We who are now survivors and witnesses. How do we carry on with wisdom and determination to make all the losses matter, mean something, manifest in our constructive actions?

The year my sister died I kept wondering what I could write that would comfort those who grieved. As I walked through one of the rooms in her home a box fell open and among the things that fell out was the little statue of La Bafana I had given her years before. La Bafana is the old woman of Italian legend that brings gifts to children on Epiphany Eve. True to her calling La Bafana gave me the one gift I wanted and inspired this legend. It is my hope it will lighten your burdens as you carry the best of this passing year into the year ahead.

 A WINTER LEGEND 

The old woman with the kerchief full of twigs slung over her shoulder approached me where I stood in the snow just off the winter trail.

“Wisdom, my child,” she said as if bestowing a blessing.

I thought I recognized her then, as La Bafana, the old woman of Italian myth who travels the countryside visiting children on Epiphany Eve.

She stood facing me, worn garments, wind-tangled, gray tendrils. Over her shoulder, the kerchief strained from the burden of twigs. When she turned her coal-black eyes on me, I felt the shadow of her loneliness and despair slip over my own eyes. She spoke again. Her words were trapped in a crystal mist between us.

“Wisdom, my child, is knowing just how long to carry this burden of sticks.” She adjusted the weight of the full kerchief. “How far you travel is unimportant, but when to put them down, that, that is wisdom.” With a gnarled finger, she tapped my forehead as if to seal her words inside. She nodded but did not smile. She turned as if to go, but instead, she slipped the bundle of twigs from her shoulder letting it settle on the snowy ground between us.

Instantly, the twigs burst free the cloth bonds that held them. They flung themselves like wild comets into the midnight sky, dazzling and dancing as they pierced the fabric of heaven and disappeared. We watched for a suspended moment, and then La Bafana stood up tall and straight. Her chestnut hair glided over her smooth face as she gracefully retrieved the kerchief and shook the last glistening remnants from it. Making a neat sling she tied the kerchief over her shoulder again. Finally, her full, sweet lips curved into a quiet smile and a laugh like tiny chimes escaped into the crisp night air.

A sudden, brisk December gale shivered through the trees around us. One twig from La Bafana’s bundle had caught in a tall pine. Now, the gust shook it free and it fell between us. La Bafana easily reclaimed the twig. She slid it into her kerchief and turned back to the winter trail. As she took her first step on the snowy path, I heard her whisper, “And this is how we begin again.”

A Winter’s Legend can be found in Winter’s Invitation. A collection of poems of peace and hope for the holiday season.

On Amazon, Kindle, and here on this site.