MAYBE NEXT YEAR
By Homer Musselman
The world dead?
Surely it must be. The sky is a dull gray. The trees are bare and cold and stiff. Lifeless — unless you count the red leaf skipping down the street, or the wind howling more real than a sullen timberwolf in the forbidding woods.
And those curious creatures called people who leave their refrigerated summer houses and come alive beneath the red glowing neon lights and tinsel and snow-softened music like furry little animals. A thousand parties and family get-togethers connected by a thin thread of goodwill and friendly cheer into a curious beast known as the Christmas season.
The dullest, coldest, gloomiest, most lifeless, despairing time of year and yet it is the center, the life, the very heart throb of each passing year. Hope, prayer, optimism, peace, dread, worry, relief. A cross to bear, a week’s vacation, a hangover, a punch in the jaw — and then it’s gone. And emptiness, like the dull, limp Christmas tree, settles.
And yet, like the ornaments carefully tucked away to patiently await next year’s return to glory, a small spark of hope lies waiting, undaunted, whispering quietly, excitedly — “next year. Maybe next year it will be different, more meaningful. Next year?” Why not . . . this year?