Tidings of Comfort and Joy

I had a  Christmas card from my friend in Scotland on Friday. We've been friends since we were five years  old ,when we  started school.

Grade Two  was our  happiest, most carefree year. Miss Kelly was our teacher.

She was young and pretty with masses of black curly hair.

Annie Wolohan and  I sat together  at a double desk. We got to squeeze out  sponges in the jam jars on the window sill and go round the class wiping slates clean . We got other neat little chores to do as well. When new slate pencils had to be distributed , we slid the lid  off  the box and  caught the scent of fresh  cedar shavings that kept the  pencils whole and  still remind me of those happy days.

We lived close by each other. Our family environments were substantially different  but we practically shared each other's lives. We both had sisters but we were closer to one another than we were to our sisters.

Life separated us early but we always knew we were still best friends.

Bobby Gibson is  Anne's husband . She  loved him since she was thirteen. There was a point when they separated. He went into the navy. Ann was a bus conductor for years. I went to London after the war.

Ann got engaged to someone else. I never knew him.

Bobby's ship was shelled on the Yangtse River . The crew who survived had to swim ashore and went missing for a  bit.

Ann knew then she could not spend her life with anyone else.

They've been married now more than sixty years.  Like everyone else , they had their troubles.

They were in Canada for a while.  In Vancouver. Bobby liked it. Ann persuaded  him to come to live in Toronto. They stayed with us for a bit. Then  she  went back in Scotland  and Bobby followed .

They've  been there ever since.

I was in Scotland in the early nineties for several months taking care of my mother. One day after I'd
 been hanging out laundry, in the sunshine , with a stiff sea breeze blowing. Ann came and knocked on my mother's  door.

"I thought it was you " she said. She had been looking out her kitchen window and  couldn't believe her  eyes.

We were s close as ever again for a few months. We have exchanged  Christmas cards faithfully and  news of our families ever since.

I received her card on Friday without much news and just hoping we are all well.

She knew I was still involved in the town's political affairs.  She didn't know I was suing .

It's too late now to send a  Christmas card.  They  had  to give up the phone  a few years ago.

So I won't  be  able to say where it's at now or that everything's fine at my end.

Which is as good a way as any I suppose, of wishing her a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year
and Tidings of Comfort and Joy.