Yesterday evening after trying to tidy up all day, I took myself to Trafalgar Square to listen to the carol singing. I'd gone with my son last week but hadn't stayed as he and his little friend needed feeding. I imagined him next to me on the 24 bus, taking him with me, in thought.
I was drawn into St Martin's in the Field by beautiful voices singing all our favourite Christmas hymns.
The service was half way through its Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. Ah it was the right place to be. The place was packed with people who'd come off the streets. At the end as they handed in their service booklets, I asked if I could keep mine, to read to my son. "I'm his new Sunday School teacher!" I laughed.
I walked over to Trafalgar Square. Mary, Joseph, the Donkey, Shepherds, Kings, they were milling around.
"Is it finished?" I asked a group of men wearing santa hats.
"Yes, but would you like a sweet?" and one produced a box of Quality Street. I took the purple one, for earlier I'd posted on Facebook the most beautiful sunset. "It's like a lollipop! A purply pinky sky descending into a blaze of orange.." He then gave me a toffee, which is actually my favourite!
They were from The Mother Theresa Center. He gave me a little flyer with a medal on it: Mother Teresa and the Miraculous Medal. My own mum had sent me one years ago to a Poste Restante in Cambodia and I'd never received it. Everything else in the package, but not that. I hadn't been upset about it at the time. My mum has her beliefs and I have mine. Now I was reminded of my mother and I smiled, thanking the man very much.
I started chatting to a woman who was holding a collection box. I pulled out change from my purse, not much as I'd pulled some out earlier in St Martin's in the Field.
The choir were singing for Action for Kids; disabled children. Hymns like Oh Come all ye Faithful and songs like Jingle Bells.
There weren't many people unlike a week ago. We all sang along as best we could. My toes were being eaten by the cold and I thought about the street homeless, and how they must be the strongest people in the country, enduring this day in, night out, day in, night out.
9pm it finished; time to go home. I walked up the steps to the National Gallery and saw three police vans and seven police cars. What's going on?
"What's happened?" I asked a policeman.
"We don't know yet."
"Something scary?!" I said, thinking of terrorist attacks.
"The earliest report we've been given is a missing child."
"..."
"We're just waiting for more information before we disband and start searching."
"If it were my child I'd be glad to see so many of you here."
Reader, I suddenly hit a MASSIVE downer. My world is never right if my son isn't in it with me. My son is in it though, we will be reunited tonight or tomorrow morning. I'll know as soon as the Foca gets back to me. Ben Needham isn't back though is he, nor Madeleine McCann, nor are thousands of children. This will be a hard Christmas for their parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, neighbours, never mind the child him or herself.
Reader, I felt, I feel, too overwhelmed.
You must post about it.
I don't want to. I've just posted a positive thought. I can't send a frightening one out there.
It's Christmas, lots of people are suffering.
I know but I don't know how to post about it. I'll write about it in my diary.
I wanted to run away from my thoughts. I wanted to write something happy!
Resistance. I've been making Christmas cards all morning with the Camden New Journal's pictures of my son.
Resistance is futile.
This is how I know that me and stigmum are separate people, sometimes. The battles we occasionally have. She hammers away at me.
You experienced this, it touched you, tell it.
I don't want to depress people. I'm always depressing people. I'll write it in my diary.
Many people are depressed, many people also feel strongly for other people.
The Stigmum Prayer. I mentioned it here on blogspot the other day. I can't send a normal prayer prayer, or maybe I couldn't until now - being a non believer of the School I have to educate my son into.
I know what it means now though reader. I know how to articulate what I meant when I said I'd be sending a Stigmum prayer to people less fortunate than me.
A prayer is just a thought.
A prayer doesn't need words.
It is a loaded thought; loaded with Love.
Love gives people strength
I, you, send the thought and hope that it reaches its destination.
It is not wrong to say a prayer for yourself.
I am doing my head in, Stigmum you are doing my head in.
You're just afraid of being judged. Stop being frightened. You are not the only person in the whole wide world who knows what it means to pray. It doesn't make you a member of the "God Squad"
No
Now say your little prayer for people and don't worry about it.
I do worry about it, Mad World is playing on the telly. It was a Christmas number one in 2003 it says.
There we go, it's a good time to remember that. You can send your prayers and other people can do what they want.
Right
I will be with you when you prepare your son for his First Communion
God help me ha ha ha
Reader, I have just puked on you.
I am an exceptionally lucky person, I will be sending a prayer to all those who aren't this Christmas season.
I hope that child wasn't missing last night. I hope that child was hiding behind a lion.
I wish everybody wealth, health and happiness for 2010.
Right, I had better tidy up, eat something, have a bath, listen to classical music, I don't know, I had better stop thinking. Or maybe start thinking, about something else.
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