The Christmas Card

Every year I got a Christmas card. Some years I got two or three, but always one specific card from one anonymous person. The return address simply read: Sender. 217 Forest St. Buxton, Maine 04004. I had never been to Buxton. I don't know anyone in Buxton. I had never been to Maine at all. I have lived in Muncie, Indiana all of my life. There is nothing that special about me. Not even my name — David Taylor — inspires interest.

The first year I got it, 1968, was the year I graduated high school. The card seemed old. One of those antique cards with beautiful artwork of a woman dressed from the days of old, Victorian, my mother called it. The woman was sitting in front of a Christmas tree with her hand up to it as though feeling for something. There was a fire in the hearth behind her and two stockings hung on the mantle. It said only two handwritten words inside the card. "Merry Christmas."

Over the years, the card continued to come. I could count on that card more than I could count on anything else. I'd get a card from my grandparents. Maybe some loan company eager to make 30% interest off me again. But when the others stopped coming, it continued. Even when I moved it found me. It followed me to my new address. I spent a year in Peru as a missionary and it was delivered to me there. I was in the Army, two years in Vietnam for Christmas, and it came to the jungle. I was married and it came. Divorced and it came. And at 35 years old for the 17th consecutive year of my life, there it was. Whoever it was that was sending me the card was persistent. 

I excused it to some ridiculous things when I bothered to give it any thought. An uncle I never knew about. A friend I forgot. A loan company for an advertisement, though no noticeable ad was a part of it. Some years, I must admit, I didn't even consider it. I opened it and set it aside. It was empty, after all. No money. No offer of anything other than Merry Christmas.

Christmas lost its magic for me over the years, grinded up by a hard life and a series of misfortunes. Who buys the same card every year? There was never anything else besides "Merry Christmas" and that woman standing by the tree in front of the fireplace. Two stockings tacked to the mantle behind her. Snow out the window. It was beautiful artwork. Norman Rockwellish. It was a textured card. It had a familiar scent. The beautiful scent of a woman. Not of perfume. But of a woman. I didn't notice that until this year. 

1985 and I spent weeks leading up to Christmas in jail. I never thought I'd spend time in jail, but no one really does until they do. I suppose there are those that might say, "I figured I'd end up here someday," drawing a natural conclusion to progressively bad behavior, but I wasn't one of those. A series of bad decisions and a few too many drinks landed me there. There was no one to bail me out. My parents died years before, and I wouldn't call my brother or sister, and certainly not my ex-wife. 

On top of everything, I lost my job. And as I was sitting in my cell, a guard passed the card to me. I knew what it was. Same handwriting and address on the return label. Same card. You got to be kididng me, I thought. Jail does many things to a person. It gives them time to consider things they don't normally consider. It makes them think about things that are painful to think about. It encourages one to rethink their life choices. To deconstruct why they are there. To live the brunt of stoic philosophy. It was the same card, but this time on the inside instead of "Merry Christmas," it read, "Come Home."

Those words haunted me for the next few days. But I was bailed out on Christmas Eve, unexpectedly. I asked the guard who was the good Samaritan, but he said he didnt know, to ask up front. But the guard up front didn't know and joked, "Probably Santa Claus. You been a good boy this year, Taylor?"

Everyone is a comedian. Jails are loaded with comedians. There are ten on every cell block, and then there are the guards. The absolute worst of them all. They all think they're Don Rickles. Humor is conveyed to ease the tension of the real matter at hand — the deprivation of liberty and inhumanity of keeping a human being in a cage. Regardless of what they've done, or how much they deserve it, jail is contrary to the human spirit.

I didn't have anywhere to go. I was locked out of my apartment. The landlord changed the locks while I was in. I suppose I could have gone to my brother's, or to stay with a girl I knew who worked at the Charlie Horse. Or an old friend who would put me up for a week or so until his wife tired of me. But instead, I went to the bus station and bought a ticket for Buxton, Maine. The christmas card, my wallet, and the clothes in a rucksack was all I had. 

I don't know why I felt so inclined, but when we stopped in Altoona for an hour layover I found a consignment shop and bought a simple black suit and shoes. I had a boy polish them and tipped him well, though money was dear. I ate lunch at a small diner and a Santa Claus sat next to me on break from his gig at Lazarus. He noticed I had a bus ticket and asked where I was going and I told him. I thought he would laugh or look at me as though I'd lost my mind, but he smiled and said he admired a man guided by faith. 

"It is, after all, what Christmas is all about. Faith and the belief in The Good Lord. God is love. And love is good. Santa is simply an ambassador of that love and goodwill offered to us by the Lord above. I want to gift you one thing, if you'll allow me."

"Of course," I replied. And as I replied, he quickly put an ornate silver skelton key in the palm of my hand. A cross was notched into the head of the key, and I stared at its beauty in my palm as Santa put his mitten hand on my shoulder. 

"For he shall open any door, if you believe in the power, the glory, and the love of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I wish you safe travels, David, and a much deserved Merry Christmas, at last," he smiled. 

I only spent about 15 minutes or so with him, but he might have been the kindest person I'd ever met. Familiar to me in some way, other than that he was Santa Claus, the most recognizable figure in the world. The key was a gift I knew I'd forever cherish, and it was hard for me to stop looking down at it.  

There is nothing fanciful about riding a bus on Christmas. The highway is cold and lonely. The busstops are often absent any cheer. They are gas stations and dirty city busstops where the homeless hang out hoping for a one-way ticket to somewhere other than where they are. Hoping to hop a bus that will take them far away from their troubles. I was no different. There is nothing romantic about it, yet there is all at the same time. There is always something romantic about the unknown. 

Somewhere in New York I realized one thing that I hadn't before. That the zipcode to Buxton, Maine, 04004, was also my jail number. No one in the world knew that besides me. It made me smile to think of it. I had never believed in anything my entire life and here I was, on a bus to someplace I've never been to before, to meet someone I've never met, who I knew nothing about. My mind toiled as I tried to rest. We stopped in Syracuse, just a few hours before Christmas. The snow fell thick and heavy and looking out of that bus window it was like I was in a snowglobe in a curio shop that someone was shaking.

I fell asleep briefly, but the screech of the brakes woke me up. The busstop in Buxton was a hardware store. A neon light bled into the puddles of the wet shoveled sidewalk. It was one of those old hardware stores that sells nails in bag and with the wood floors that creak and smell like everything old and good in the world. There was a lit up Santa in the window, which made me think of the kind Lazarus Santa in Altoona who gave me the key which I held in the palm of my hand. 

The bell in the doorway changed behind me. The windows were frosted. People were dressed differently. A young kid was proudly shoveling the walk out front. Everything had a charming old-world feel and I felt welcomed. I took my bag off the bus and asked the kid doing the shoveling where 217 Forest St. was and he gave me directions, though, strangely, I knew where it was. It was only a few blocks away past a Lutheran church. He called me mister and said cabs didn't run this late, but I said I'd walk. He offered to transport my rucksack on his sled for a marginal fee, but I told him it was alright. 

The snow seemed to relent as I walked, unsure of what to expect. Unsure of who would answer the door or why they had sent me those cards all these years. Unsure how they found me. But certain of one thing, that I was firmly and safely in the palm of our Lord and guided by a destiny that I needed to follow. If I was without faith, I wouldn't have come. I would have been back home at the Charlie Horse, drinking and carousing with the usual people. Hungover on Christmas. Too many years I had spent that way.

The Lutheran church was lit up and looked warm, so I ducked inside. The stained-glass windows were magnificent and mesmerizing. The choir began to sing "Silent Night" and each member of the congregation was holding a candle as they sung along, all but the children, who stared in rapture of the flames and the melting wax that peeled down the side of the white candles their parent's held. An usher offered me a seat and a candle and a kind woman next to me lit my candle with hers. 

"Coming home?" she asked, seeing my bag. 

I nodded yes and she smiled. 

"Well, welcome home. Perfect timing." 

I had never felt more welcome anywhere in my life. The room glowed so wondrously. I felt I was inside of a diamond or some jewel. And I sang the rest of the song as though I belonged. I knew all the words. I felt no uncaring, suspect eyes upon me for maybe the first time in my life.

Being so near to the door when the song was over I walked out before the crowded room had a chance to empty. I found my way one block more to 217 Forest St. as the boy had promised and as I knew. It was a glorious Victorian house. Breathtaking. Pale pink and green. Various shades of gray, a slate roof, four gables, a brick chimney, and red accents. A Christmas wreath adorned with holly hung from the front door. There were candles in every window, blinds pulled halfway, red shutters, and a fat Christmas tree in the front window strung with lights and tinsel and ornaments that caught the colorful light of those strands perfectly.  

I didn't know whether to knock or to ring the bell. Suddenly, I seized in fear and doubted myself and my presence. The last card notwithstanding, I didn't feel an invitation was exactly extended, rather it was a suggestion. My mind wondered wildly as I stood there. No answer to my knock or pull of the bell which I could hear echo through the halls. I would knock once more, I told myself, putting my bag down, breathing deeply. Why was I nervous. I had every right to learn who was sending me those Christmas cards and why. Maybe they had me confused for another David Taylor, after all, it was a common name. My faith remained, despite my moment of doubt, but it was melting off my shoes where I stood. There was a puddle of it at my feet. 

"Use your key," her voice offered. From somewhere around the snow-covered boxwoods. I turned to look and there she was. The lady from the postcard. Only not a drawing of her, the actual person who the artist had so masterfully rendered. Down the the dimple on her chin, and the gleam in her amber eyes, and the hue of her plump pink lips. 

I realized I was still holding the key Santa had given me, and pushed it into the lock and turned it. The door clicked open and the warmth and the light that so plentifully filled the house spilled out over me, consuming me in an instant. The redolance of baked gingerbread and candles flooded my senses. The smell of familiarity. It all overcame me as I slowly stepped inside. 

She put her hands on my shoulders as she stood behind me and her forehead in my back as she began to cry. 

"I gave you the key as I reminder to come home. And you are — finally home. I never lost faith in you. Or in us."

"You sent the Christmas cards?"

"Christmas cards? No, darling."

I realized then that it was divine. I never belonged in the life I was in because this is where I belong. And that other lifetime of discontent suddenly made sense. God was telling me that this is where I belong. Where I will always belong. And love had beckoned me to return in spite of life and death, and reality and my ability to comprehend. 

I caught a glimpse of myself in an oval floor mirror in the front room and my rucksack by my feet. I was in uniform. A uniform I didn't immediatley recognize. One that they wore before I ever served. One my grandfather wore — in World War I. I looked at myself and the woman I loved, once upon a time, and once more. Once upon a time, simply a picture on a postcard. A faint memory that persisted. I was home. A sorely missed place I hadn't known in a lifetime. How I got back, where I had been, and what happened between mattered little at all. Next year, that Christmas card will be of nothing missed, no two apart, but of reunited lovers, and child, in Buxton, Maine, by the glory of Christ Almighty.