3 more nights to go or it snowed on Christmas (in Portland!) or what would it be like to have your child die on Christmas Eve?

Harper and I were soaking up heat this morning ... We heard a sound over by the door, to which Harper looked, I followed his gaze, only to discover that it was snowing great big flakes. Wow. I called my Mom to share my excitement with her. She wasn't having quite as impressive of a snowfall up in Longview. It felt like those time in elementary school (well, I guess HS as well) when it would snow and everyone ran over to the window, despite teacher's admonitions to "stay in your seat's please." Anyhow, a nice gift.

Okay, so now I've been to mass twice in the past year. Once with Yola in Seattle a few months ago and today by my lonesome for Christmas. Even went I went to mass more religiously (no pun intended) during my stint in St Louis, I reframed the homily teaching in light of different spiritual traditions. For example today's homily ... The priest discussed how Christmas isn't just a holiday for children but is very much an adult holiday as well (good point but a bit annoying, it is only put forth as a children's holiday by mass media and commercialism). Christmas is about God becoming one of us, and each of our neighbors has a bit of God in them. Reframed in my mind by a quotation I read recently that rings true: we are spirits having a human experience not humans having a spiritual experience. I agree with the priest that the difficult time comes in remembering that about our neighbors and especially, at times, about ourselves. We are all worthy and all are part of the greater Spirit of the universe (or however you want to conceptualize that for yourself). He also discussed how the shepherds were banned from attending temples in the cities. Ironic isn't it, that they received first the news of Jesus' birth. I've never thought of it that way. Whenever I hear the Christmas story, I can't help but remember the retelling of the story by Garrison Keillor, which is absolutely hilarious. Worth listening to every year.

A few excerpts from my memory ...
After the shepherds heard the news of Jesus' they "believed instantly but weren't quite sure where to go and stopped to ask others if they new about it as well.
"You didn't happen to see a heavenly host up in the sky about 10 minutes ago did you?"
"A what?"
"Oh, never mind."

Also the wise men were coming from the local Eastern university and were referred to as the "associate wise man," the "assistant wise man" and the "chair of the wisdom" department.

3 nights left to work at the hospital over this break - then 5 days off. I have a month of night float, in which I work nights (5:30pm to 7:30 am) Monday through Thursday for 4 weeks. I'm having trouble after 2 nights; I'm not sure how 16 in the stretch of a month are going to be. The intern and I are covering general pediatrics and hematology/oncology. Once of the oncology patient died at 7pm last night. It was expected - he had leukemia, went through a bone marrow transplant, and developed terrible graft vs host disease. He was intending to be discharged to hospice yesterday but got much sicker before that could happen. What would it be like to have a child die, let alone around the holidays? The intern asked rhetorically last night, whether his death will ruin Christmas for that family from now on. His life and death will certainly be remembered more poignantly this time of year, but hopefully they are able to continue living their lives, even though they will certainly also forever have some grief for the fact that they won't see their teenager reach adulthood ...