A break in the silence

It is winter fourteen years ago and I am plodding along, wide-eyed, six, along with my parents, one on each arm as my pom-pom hat and muffler stifles me in the mild Christmas Eve. Celebrations, the Thoburn Methodist Church shines amidst the festivities, the very term ‘fete’ exotic to my inexperienced years. My first taste of Christmas, the lights, the stalls set up on the occasion, the sense of something grand, something warm in the heart of bittersweet winter. So many colours, and the structure of the church now imprinted magical in hazy memory, big, fog-hidden, iron gates with intricate carvings.

Long walk till we get a cab, still a parent on each arm. Shift the scene to long darkened friendly winter light lit hallways, corridors of my school echoing with few footsteps on holidays when only solitary choir-boy footsteps resound, sole owners of the school, indebted in song. Morning Has Broken on the grand piano in the chapel hall, like the first morning. Sports practice on the grounds, breakfast on chocolate cake on the school steps, in front of the building with the Cross and the auditorium.

This piece is at an end, as memories fade further. This time was happier then, lights that seemed to sparkle, the Christmas morning cartoons on the old television, and the carols sung in school-boy choirs, to the accompaniment of our teacher on the grand-piano. A few reminiscences hastily strung together, nothing less nothing more than a break in the silence.