A Festival of Carols,

on love divine

Two Saturdays ago, I took Sophie to spectacular Disney Hall for the Festival of Carols. I’ve been feeling agitated about how small her life is, how very, very small, and when I saw that the LA Master Chorale would be singing holiday songs, both classical and a bit more esoteric, I thought why not, splurged and off we went. We sat right near the front — I think it was about the fourth row or so, and while the first half was a mini nightmare of Sophie agitated, kicking her legs with me practically lying on top of her, the second half after intermission was quite beautiful. I won’t say that Sophie was enraptured, but she did listen and seemed very peaceful. I am grateful to have gone with her. I always believe that on some level she is utterly aware of the world around her, knows everything, and this belief causes me to feel both anguish and deep respect. On the Friday night following that Saturday, so exactly one week ago from this writing, I was at my school’s holiday party — I’d been there for about 45 minutes — when I got an hysterical call from the nurse who was taking care of Sophie. She had somehow fallen out of bed while the nurse was out of the room and had hit her face on the wheelchair (we don’t know). All her vitals (this word, this word) were fine, she could move her arms and legs and head, but she had a very large gash on her cheekbone under her left eye. I rushed home, truly rushed home, running through the ridiculous mall and under Santa and his sleigh and all the reindeer suspended, the Christmas bedecked outdoor mall where the restaurant party was happening, luckily with Carl who held my hand. We took Sophie to the emergency room nearest us which could best be described as an airport hangar in one of the world’s richest hospitals — the one that has all the celebrity-named buildings and artwork, the one where Sophie’s ankle was mysteriously broken when she was under their care for pneumonia in February of this year, the one where absolutely no one took any responsibility for the break and completely blew us off — that one, but that one is closest and the gash was deep and long enough to warrant the closest. I won’t go into the scenes unfolding before our eyes in that hangar — the groups of people who appeared to be transients, the cops escorting a screaming, cursing man out the door, the security officer with the white BELONGINGS bag telling the woman sleeping on the short bench that she had to get up and leave, she was discharged, the angry woman who could be your neighbor, or the person you went to high school with that you heard was not doing well who was yelling at the security guard to have a heart, more policemen, this time rushing through the doors into the Interior, the woman sitting have her vitals taken who was also being wanded (is that the word?) by another security guard (later, the nurse assigned to Sophie shared with me that earlier in the week someone had shown up with a loaded gun on him), the groaning, sneezing, coughing, hacking, moaning — and I don’t really want to write about the rest of it, but somewhere in there Henry showed up and stood by Sophie’s bed while they worked and I sat in a folding chair against the wall, leaning my head on an old wall telephone without the receiver and I just felt numb and tired. When the nurse read out the discharge instructions, he also said, I know this isn’t your first rodeo and that made me love him even more than I already did. We brought Sophie home in the hour or so before dawn with stitches in her precious face and I’ve cried and cried about it because I feel so bad for her, just so so sad for her. Sometimes, I don’t know what’s happening to me, to my strength and ability to bounce back or up or even crack a joke or think an absurd thought. I’ve got nothing. At best, I think about the current state our country is in and can muster up a reference to it being like a Mel Brooks movie, a kind of Spaceballs movie or Americaballs movie and laugh hysterically with a friend on the phone about Leon the Anagram as one of the characters in the movie (his wide face and terrible grin). The word filth. I’m grateful for the at bests. And want to know what else? One week later, Sophie and I have Covid. Before you cry out Jesus Christ! in a religious sense or a secular sense, know that we’re ok, that so far it’s mild, that Sophie is on an antibiotic because we’re trying to stay ahead of another round of pneumonia and she does have an infection as well but seems to be ok and I guess we’ll both be ok but, as my friend T texted when she found out: For fuck’s sake. That one short phrase made everything better — it really did. I guess I can still, must, will always eke out the gratitude. Love all lovely, love divine.

Love Came Down at Christmas

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.

by Christina Rosetti (1885)

A pretty version sung by Shawn Colvin is here.