Life, actually…

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ALL ABOUT HAND CARVED WHISTLES AND SMALL ANGELS

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Another Christmas looms, and what do I have to show for it?

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Each Christmas Down South, I receive kind attentions and some truly marvelous trinkets that remind me of what the world was like when I was four years old.

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One of my favorite Christmas stories from grammar school is the Charles Tazewell tale of the Littlest Angel. The story of the Littlest Angel always sticks with me because of the respect it pays to the feelings of little children, the reverence with which it views the really important possessions of life.

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As you may recall, the Littlest Angel was not happy in heaven because he had left behind under his earthly bed the most important things in his small world.

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Each of these objects had absolutely no significance to anyone but him.

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That’s exactly the memory I cherish to this day. I still value most the small things that remind me of tendernesses long gone.

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I keep little memory-jogging doodads all over my book store and everywhere at home.

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Each attentive family member knows by now that what I want for my birthday or Christmas is not a tie or a shirt or a screwdriver, but a toy or a handmade trinket that is just a little bit special and that is selected out of love instead of duty.

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The rule of buying a gift for Jim Reed, should you ever be so inspired: Find something that makes you smile. Bring me your smile. And if you wish, bring me that special thing that made you smile.

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What was in the Littlest Angel’s box under his bed?

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“A butterfly with golden wings, captured one bright summer day on the hills above Jerusalem, and a sky-blue egg from a bird’s nest in the olive tree that stood to shade his mother’s kitchen door. Yes, and two white stones, found on a muddy river bank, where he and his friends had played like small brown beavers, and, at the bottom of the box, a limp, tooth-marked leather strap, once worn as a collar by his mongrel dog, who had died as he had lived, in absolute and infinite devotion.”

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What really makes my morning today is the fond memory of a little present in the mail from my big sister, sent so long ago and still cherished: A small hand carved wooden whistle with three distinct notes that I toot over and over again all the way to work, enjoying each moment of pure sound, pure love.

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Big sisters still remember what little brothers and small angels love most

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© 2022 A.D. by Jim Reed

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