The Occasional Poem

(Note: For the past few years, I have re-posted this piece by my mother at Christmastime.)

I do not know how old I was the year I saw and heard the Christmas angels – seven, eight or even nine. It was early on Christmas morning, before anyone was stirring. I became conscious of the presence of angels moving up and down a staircase above the foot of my bed. There was singing, a bubbly crystal-clear sound, and a swaying rhythm. It gave me a sense of profound comfort, and a feeling that all was perfect in my world.

Later when we were having breakfast around the tree and opening our presents, I sort of explored the subject to see if anyone else in the house saw or heard the angels. Nobody picked up on my hints or gave me a lead-in on the subject of angels, so I kept it always to myself. I really did not want to expose my wonder-vision to anybody else by actually talking about it, especially if no one else had the experience. To this day I can recall the feeling I had. Every Christmas morning I still hug it to my heart and savor it privately. I do not think it was the dream of an over-excited child. I think there really were angels in my bedroom that Christmas morning.

One other time in my life I have had this feeling of the nearness of a heavenly presence. That time I felt it was God who was near me when our second son, Joey, was baptized at Central Reformed Church in Grand Rapids. Ralph and I were standing in the pew, Joey in my arms wrapped in an embroidered yellowed wool blanket that had been around my father when he was baptized in the same church. Tommy, our first-born, was standing on the pew before us. All at once I felt a lift to my heart, a suffusion of joy, and I knew God was there with us.

That was 40 years ago (note: more than 90 years ago now). That feeling or vision has never reoccurred, but it is vivid and still real. Perhaps an opening into another world.

Our mother – Catherine (Cassie) Verschoor Neely McNabb – died in 2018, comfortably into her 90’s. She was a fine, wonderful writer. Cassie wrote this piece about a special Christmas memory from her childhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mom was born in 1925, so this memory springs from 1932 or so. A collection of her writings is available as an eBook from Amazon.

Cassie with Bill McNabb, her high school boyfriend who eventually became her husband.

Merry Christmas
Happy Chanuka
Kwanzaa Blessings
Assalamu Alaikum
and Season’s Greetings!

My book of poems – SLOW RIVERS, Poems from My Sixties – is currently in-stock at Michigan stores including Three Pines Studio in Cross Village, the Good Hart General Store in Goodhart, Stirling Books and Brew in Albion, Glendora Bookshop in Buchanan and at all Schuler Books locations. Please consider bookshop.org when ordering online, a website which benefits independent bookstores. Let me know if you are having trouble finding SLOW RIVERS and I’ll steer you in the right direction (slowriverpoems@gmail.com).

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