The Carol from Downstairs

I am sick again. The kind of sick that, for me, lasts about nine months or so.

Last week, at the end of a particularly sick-feeling day, my husband arrived home and sent me to bed. He would see our busy little family through dinner, swim practice and the rest of the chaos that comes with four little girls in our little yellow house.

As I laid in bed trying to quiet my queasy stomach and calm my aching head, I listened to my family carry on the evening one floor beneath me.

I heard my husband in the kitchen making dinner for our children, talking with them about their days. I heard my daughters answer, taking turns, interrupting, and all the while helping daddy to make dinner and continue their play all at the same time. I heard the baby, recent crawler that she is, make her way around the rooms, babbling, shouting and shrieking in order to be heard, not to be left out of the fray.

All the noise didn't seem like noise, but rather parts of a song being sung. I could see the glow from the candles in all the windows, and the warmth of the colored lights on our Christmas tree making its way up the stairs. A song, a carol, a Christmas carol.