Another Lamb of God

Back to my roots for the holidays in Guymon, Oklahoma, and it was Christmas Eve morning. While the rest of the family was at church, I was running a few errands and generally enjoying soaking up hometown ambience. As I pulled out of the McDonald’s parking lot with my reward of an eagerly-anticipated cup of coffee and headed back to "the ranch", I realized that I’d forgotten to get a card for my brother-in-law. Not 10 a.m. yet, and I was on my second trip to Wal-Mart in Guymon, America. I could only be grateful that in this buckle of the Bible Belt the throngs were still listening to their pastors read Luke, and I might be able to do another quick drive-by before it became completely covered in last-minute shoppers.

I scanned the picked-over remains of holiday greeting cards and tittered over the variety of evil greetings I could bestow on my beloved “brother” Mike. (OMG… Happy Redneck Hanukkah? I don’t think so….) My immersion subsided long enough to become aware of a small whitish figure next to me and to the possibility that I was smack in her way. As I apologized and moved aside, she said, no, I wasn’t in the way. “I’m looking for a card for my husband, but they don’t seem to have any.”

Enshrouded in a winter white down coat and sheerling-trimmed hat, she didn’t quite come up to my shoulder. Her face had both the lines and age of baked earth, and the concave cheeks and sibilant speech gave witness to the absence of even dentures. In guessing at her age, the possibility that she was born in a manger adjacent to Jesus’ was not unlikely.

Having already done my due diligence in memorizing the various categories such as they were, I pointed this ancient little lamb to the almost-obscured “Husband” area toward the top of the display. I wasn’t sure she could reach it, so I handed her one with hearts and reindeer and sweet connubial sentiments. As I was reaching for some others to give her a selection, she waved them away. “This is the one I want.”

Along with the card, she was holding an electric razor encased in the kind of plastic that will resist the best efforts of a blow torch. The Lamb turned toward me with the deepest eyes I’ve ever seen. “My husband’s in the hospital. He can’t talk. He had a stroke and is paralyzed from the face down, and they’ve had trouble finding a razor head that they could shave him with. I hope this one works. The kids are each going to call him in his hospital room. He can’t talk, but I can tell him what each one of them says.”

She had no tone of self-pity. I said something about the blessing of caring children and how much it would mean to him. She put her hand on my arm, and it stayed there in the sweetest of human gestures as she went on.

“We’ve been married for sixty-three years. If anyone who’s still together ever tells you they don’t have trouble, don’t believe’em.” We both laughed at that.

The Lamb and I hugged in the card section of Guymon America’s Wal-Mart, wishing each other Merry Christmas and the best of good tidings. I paid for my suitably loving/insulting card for Mike, then went out to my rental car where I oozed tears as if I’d just seen “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Maybe that’s the effect meeting a Christmas angel has. You never know where it might happen.