Willy and the Look - Elsie Montgomery

I bought a red convertible that year, to impress women. It worked, for a while. They liked my car but they didn’t like me much. At least, they didn’t hang around long, after a date or two. At first, having a different date every weekend seemed blue ribbon but after a couple months, it seemed more like the booby prize. In August, my mind whirled around life and what I should do with mine. Washed up? At twenty-two? Am I really a loser?

My old man used to say, “Sit and sulk or git up and do sumpin’ about it — that’s yur choice, kid.”

Do something? Like what? That fall was a wipe out too. The more sumpin’ I tried to do, the less the women were impressed, at least until I met Willy.

Willy was three years younger than me, black, and smooth with women. Not smooth like a slick salesman or a TV evangelist. He was smooth like the medicine Mom used to give me mixed in white corn syrup. It was delicious and went down without a fight. That just about describes Willy and women. Only he couldn’t get rid of them if he tried. The more he took, the more they gave. And I say they, meaning six of them, at the same time, and they knew each other, and they knew he was dating all the others, but they didn’t walk away mad. Heck no. They kept coming back for more of Willy. So I asked him to teach me what he had. He agreed.

He started slow, then talked for hours about the look. It wasn’t the look your folks give you when you are in trouble. It wasn’t the look like “Honey, I want to eat you up.” It was a look that said something like, “I have life by the tail and I know you are itching to come along for the ride.” It was a look of delight, like Willy had a secret with you. He said the women loved it. They loved thinking that they had an ‘in’ with him, a shared delight that wasn’t defined, but that made it mysterious and precious, and they were going to hang with him until they found out what it was. Other women might have his body for a time, but with that look, they had intimacy. And Willy said, “Boy, that is what women really want.”

I couldn’t do it. I tried. Jennifer thought it was a silly grin. She wasn’t impressed. Helen wondered if I had just heard a stupid joke and blew up at me because I wouldn’t share it with her. Jeannie thought I was mocking her. She slammed a door in my face and left.

I went crying back to Willy. Well, I didn’t cry on the outside, but he seemed to know that I was just about that desperate.

“Boy, you just haven’t got it yet. And you know why? It is not something you fake on the outside, man. You have to have life really by the tail, not pretend you do. If women want to go along for the ride, they have to know you are genuine, man. Don’t you get it? You really can’t fake that. The look is an inner thing first, somethin’ that comes from the heart.”

“But Willy, how do I get that in my heart? I always thought that if you acted really hard that you were somebody, you would become somebody. That’s what you did, isn’t it? Don’t you have that look because you have convinced yourself about this whole thing? Nobody really has the world by the tail, at least not guys like you and me.”

“Oh, but that’s where you are wrong, boy. I’m totally sure of me, myself, and I. I know who I am, and I can look at anyone with confidence that comes from right here.” Willy pounded his chest with his fist. My chest just pounded. This was nonsense to me.

I started watching Willy, sometimes when he wasn’t noticing that I was watching. He seemed sure of himself, all the time in fact. Then August came, and Willy started coughing. He wasn’t feeling well either. He tried telling me that he was okay, but he kept coughing and losing weight so I rounded up his friends and we ganged up on him and talked him into going to a doctor. It was not good. Willy had cancer, in his lungs.

The first thing to go, besides some pounds and a lot of oxygen from his chest, was that look. He lost it. His eyes dimmed. No smiling. No jaunty glances at the pretty ones. Willy was like a balloon without air, a rose with no petals (he wouldn’t like that description very much) or a Porsche that had run out of both oil and gas (better, much better). His listlessness turned into blank and horrible staring, punctuated by coughing spasms.

I drove him to the hospital on November 1. He was in pain, his head lolling against the window and his body making little effort to keep from folding into a fetal position. After the paperwork was done, they put him into bed in a double room. The man in the next bed also had lung cancer. He smiled at us. I wondered why he had a shine on his face. Willy’s face was pasty, if a colored person can have a pasty face.

Willy didn’t notice, but I did. This roommate man had a look. It wasn’t the look, not a saucy, come-with-me-baby look that the nurses fell all over themselves for, but nonetheless, it was a look. He coughed like Willy too, but the look didn’t go away.

That first day Willy moaned and mumbled thanks, but I knew he didn’t want me or anyone he knew to watch him like this, so I said goodbye and went for a walk. The halls in a hospital are long and lonely this time of day. I passed many rooms where folks were huddled around a person in a bed, their eyes full of tears or outright sobbing aloud. I felt like blubbering myself. Poor Willy.

I didn’t pay much attention to where I was going until I passed the door of a room and heard a man praying. He prayed in a firm voice, like he knew who he was talking to. He was not praying for himself though, but someone else. He asked, “God, you know the pain and the deepest needs of this fellow’s heart. You know that whatever is going on in his body is not nearly so dangerous as the emptiness of his soul. Lord, I just ask that you have mercy on him, that you reveal to him the source of true peace and joy, that you give to him meaning and fullness of life as only you can. I pray that you will show him that having you in his heart will give him great peace and joy, a confidence and a hope that cannot be robbed, not even by lung cancer.”

My heart started skipping beats. I lifted my lowered eyes and looked in the room, but even before I did, I knew who the man was, and I knew that he was praying for Willy.

Willy died two weeks later. I didn’t go see him very much before it happened. I wanted to, but couldn’t handle the way he looked. Besides, he was drugged up and we couldn’t talk much. I feel guilty. It was pure selfish discomfort on my part.

The funeral was large for someone so young. We all cried, all of his friends, all of the girls who had known him back then. The pastor talked about the hope of eternal life. Afterwards, even though I’m not one to do such a thing, I got up and told all of them about the man in the next bed and about his prayers for Willy. I even said, “Who knows. Maybe God answered that man, and maybe Willy has that confidence and hope that he prayed for. Maybe Willy has life by the tail now, far more than he ever had it while he was alive.”

I still shake my head remembering that I said that, because I didn’t think I was a religious man. I still don’t, but I have to say that after Willy died, I decided to visit that room. Maybe it was the guilt, but I knew someone would be in it, someone who was dying just like Willy, and I felt I needed to pay my respects to someone that was alive.

I was surprised the first time I went. That praying man was still in the next bed. Not only that, he hung on for months. He coughed, and he lost weight until he looked like bones wrapped in skin. He was in pain too, but the shine on his face was like a magnet.

Eventually I told him I overheard him praying for Willy. He smiled, then he said, “Do you want me to pray for you too?”

I did. And he did. Before he went to join Willy in death, he shared with me the secret, his secret. I didn’t ask about that look that he had, nor would have, but he told me anyway.

I was surprised. I still am, because, you see, I have it now, the look. It is not to catch girls even though they find me much more interesting than I was before. Instead, I have this same look that man had, not the one that Willy lost.

My look does for others what his did for me; it makes them stop and wonder. Some even ask why I’m so darn sure of myself. I just smile and tell them, “It’s not me that I’m sure of, but if you are interested, I’d be happy to tell you how to get this look. . . .”


© Elsie Montgomery (remembering Janice W. who told me that before she believed, she knew who did because their faces shone!)

Window Shopping - Marcia Laycock

The street twinkled with Christmas lights. Our boots crunched on a skiff of snow that had fallen the night before and my daughters and I smiled and laughed as we window shopped, chatting about possible gifts for members of our family. It was fun window shopping – oohing and ahhing over the bright Christmas displays and pointing out things we liked. Now and then we’d see something we all thought was particularly ugly and we’d all groan at the same time. Now and then the display in the window was enough to draw us into the store.

Window shopping is fun, but it can’t beat being able to walk into the store and buy the perfect gift. It can’t beat taking it home and wrapping it in bright paper, knowing it will soon make your loved one’s eyes light up when they open it. It can’t beat the feeling of anticipation as you put it under the tree.

As we turn to spiritual things during the Christmas season, too often many of us just window shop. On the internet it’s called lurking. We look but don’t buy, we listen but don’t participate. Standing on the outside looking in has its advantages. We believe it’s a safe place – God can’t ask anything of us if we don’t make a commitment. We won’t have to change if we stay on the edge and stay quiet.

But window shoppers never get to feel the excitement of finding the perfect gift. Lurkers never get to express their feelings and thoughts – no relationship develops with other people of like mind. Similarly, those who do not make a commitment to Christ never know the joy of the gift of salvation. They are never able to dialogue with Jesus as a friend, a brother, a saviour. Too many are missing the perfect gift – the gift of Jesus himself.

Are you window shopping but never buying? Are you lurking but never participating?
Find the true joy of Christmas this year. Step inside where it’s warm. Find that perfect gift and take it home. The perfect gift is Jesus Christ and He’s waiting for you.

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

Musings on Mary - Bonnie Way

The other night my husband and I watched The Nativity. It got me thinking again about what it must have been like for Mary to carry the Savior in her womb. Being pregnant this Christmas has made me see her story in a new light.

I wonder, when she said yes to the angel, if she knew all that it would bring. I certainly didn’t, when my husband asked me, “Do you want to have a baby?” and I said “sure!” Oh, I’d heard about pregnancy from other women, and so had Mary, probably. She was with Elizabeth for part of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, and the movie shows Mary’s fear and wonder as Elizabeth gives birth to baby John. Yet that scarcely prepares you for going through it yourself or for the unique experience that every woman has in carrying a baby.

And while I carry my baby supported by family and friends, Mary had to deal with a husband who considered divorcing her for unfaithfulness and a society that thought she’d been immoral. In the movie, even her family questions her story. I wonder if Mary herself had doubts about what the angel said, in the first few weeks when there wasn’t any sign of the new life growing inside her. And yet soon enough she would know, and so would everyone else… and that could mean her death.

Part of me marvels at God’s trust in placing His only beloved Son in virgin’s womb. At times I have felt overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for and protecting this tiny person inside me, but I’m married and don’t live in a society that stones unwed mothers. Did Mary think of that when she said yes to the angel? Or did it occur to her later? And yet God knew that the man He had chosen for her would take care of her and her Son, would save her from the stones of her neighbors, though likely not from their gossiping.

And then, just before her baby’s birth, to have to travel a long distance because of an emperor’s decree… to leave behind all the women who could help her through her labor and go with a husband she perhaps barely knew to a city she’d never seen before… I marvel at her courage, her simple acceptance of everything thrown at her, the faith that must have carried her through those days. I have the choice of a hospital fifteen minutes away or one half an hour away; a midwife or a doctor; all that modern medical care can offer; but Mary just had herself, her husband, and a few cows in a stable. Was she scared? Was she nervous? Or did she just trust God?

So this Christmas I muse on an old, familiar story, one that I’ve heard so many times over in my growing up years… and yet one that has become new and fresh again this year and still has the power to make me ponder, as Mary did, everything that happened.

Links of history - Violet Nesdoly

I am the writer of our family’s annual Christmas letter. I have, in my "Christmas" file, a copy of each one I’ve written! One of these years (maybe this one) I’ll make a photocopy of each and compile scrapbooks for my now-adult kids. But before I indulge in that luxury, I’ve set myself the task of writing this year’s letter.

For me the hardest part of composing this yearly newsletter is getting started. To help me with that I usually reread past versions to see how I’ve done it before. And so on Friday, I hauled out the Christmas file and flipped through this family history-in-letters.

The first thing that hit me was how technology has changed things. The earliest letters were handwritten on lined notepaper. A couple of years after that I designed letters that folded into cards with calligraphy or pen-and-ink drawings on the front. I painstakingly printed the artwork and the letter itself on parchment paper those years to keep the ink from fuzzing, as it did if I used bond. Then I photocopied them.

In 1990 I must have hauled out my old manual Olympus to do the Christmas letter - because it definitely has the typewriter look (white-out and all). Then in 1991 I used a borrowed word processor. Finally in 1992 I got a computer which I’ve used till the present, printing the letters on a variety of Christmas stationary.

In addition to mirroring advances in technology, a bit of the history of the times comes through these letters too. For example the 1990 letter begins:

In only a few more weeks 1990 will be history. It has truly been an amazing year in our world, with the unexpected toppling of much of the Eastern Bloc, the sudden flare-up in the Middle East and looming uncertainties throughout our country as befuddled politicians tackle one brush fire after another...

(My goodness, that last bit could be a description of Canadian politics any year!)

In 1997 a mail strike was pending and that year’s letter started out:

To write or not to write that is the question,
Whether the mail will move we do not know
But when it comes to friends, e’en the suggestion
That we’d forget them’s answered with a ‘No!'

And a year later, as email became the favorite mode of communication for me, I jingled:

Email would be faster
a visit even better,
but as tradition would dictate,
from us a Christmas letter....

The most favorite part of rereading these letters, though, is reliving times with the kids. Here are a few favorite bits.

From the 1990 letter when B. had just turned five:

...This is a conversation we overheard between him and a little boy in the next seat on the ferry this summer. They were watching some object in the sky.

Little Boy: ...maybe it will go as high as Santa Claus.

B.: Santa Claus is a sham

Little Boy: (silence)

B: Do you know what a "sham" is? It’s a fake.

We nervously glanced at the little boy’s parents and were
relieved when the two boys started talking about something else.

(Though Santa was never part of our Christmas tradition, we did not coach our kids to dash other kids' illusions about Father Christmas - honestly.)

And from that same letter:

S’s comeback to B’s endless knock-knock jokes:

B.: Knock-knock

S.: This is a recording. There is nobody home.

Finally, from the 1993 letter, when S. was 10 and not the keenest pianist:

...I brought some dispute between the children re: piano practice times to Ernie, our resident mediator and after he suggested a solution to the problem, he declared, "I’m as good as Solomon," at which point I heard S. mutter, "Yeah, cut the piano in half!"

Alas, reading all these old letters brings me no closer to starting this year’s. But I’ll think of a way to begin it in due course. Because I wouldn’t want to break this letter chain– which already spans 20 years!

*****************


I first posted this on my blog in late November 2005. That year I did get around to putting together a collection of letters for the kids. I made color copies of each, slipped them into plastic protective sheets, printed a photo collage cover, put the works into D-ring binders and called the project "Our Story in Letters."


So take up that pen or head over to that keyboard to write your annual Christmas letter. After all, you're writing much more than a letter - you're writing history.