Snow Globe

(repost from June 2010)

I noticed the other day, while searching for some documents, that a box where I keep a prized holiday possession was damaged. I opened it praying for the best. It was a Christmas snow globe that my grandmother had given me the year that she passed away. It was a simple item, no doubt mass produced and breezed over each year on closeout shelves, but always held special meaning for me. Even now, 12 years after her passing, I open it at Christmas time and smile through tears.

One of my favorite things

These past years have been rough, I may not have been able to afford a grand Christmas setting or possibly wasn't well enough to set one up, but this item had to be out to officially give me Christmas. I would sit it next to another item that has always been out, a Polar Bear figurine that my dad gave me, it was his favorite Lou Rankin bear. Funny how such simple items hold the grand journeys of our most treasured memories. I have little left from my childhood. A few little reminders of a simpler time. Perhaps that is why I am able to story tell in such a childlike fashion, the memory of trying to be a child through my families struggles are all I have left. I will forever cling to that innocence.

The globe was broken, the water had spilled out, the scenery was dry and lifeless. So many years spent winding up a musical key and shaking to watch flurries of sparkles rain down on a winter paradise flew through my mind. Year after year I aged and fought and triumphed only to fall again. A century full of life's roller coaster moments. My story is no different than anyone else's. We all fight and give up then wearily decide to pick up the battered gloves to fight again. I sat here at my desk thinking of my grandmother, reminiscing about my life and came up with this little poem-esque writing. I hope you enjoy it.

And to those of you who have put your boxing gloves down,,, reach for them one more time and come out swinging until the final bell sounds.

Water swirls around me, as sparkled snow flakes flutter by, but your grass is perfectly green now, and the sun will always shine. Outside life be damned,,, I can't see you anymore. I stay cocooned in clarity, in the glass, of my snow globed world.

You all look in and wonder: "What's the glow we all can see?" I smile and say: "How lovely,,, you see the shell of me." I once like you have carried, someones world there in my hands, or rather, he carried mine, until he slipped and shattered plans. I worked so hard to find them, tiny pieces, shards of light, yet still my globe lay broken, as life steps over it in spite.

But some had made exception, stopping by to share their glow, giving joy with names unmentioned, able hands to toss fake snow. A broken life starts thriving, on gifts received and help that's given. And soon enough,, you're whole again,,, in this bright world we're blessed to live in.