The Lebanese Visitation
It would appear that I was alone
on this Christmas Eve
as I sat at the metal table
wrapping grape leaf rolls
in 2020.
But my dead Lebanese relatives
floated through the front door
as if called from afar
when I opened the spice-stained
family cookbook.
They stood across the room
to respect my rules
about no dead relatives in my space.
I kept rolling the grape leaves,
but to acknowledge them,
I said aloud,
“Hello, great-great-uncle Gabriel.”
They looked at each other in surprise.
Then I said, “Hello great-uncle Joe.”
Delighted, they all laughed
and looked at each other wide-eyed.
Then, Siti stepped forward.
Siti is an Arabic word for Grandmother.
I said “Hello, Siti.”
And the dialogue began.
I could hear her in my mind saying,
“Light the candle.”
So I did.
Then she said,
“Turn on some Christmas music”
So i did.
She looked at my dog
who was ignoring the smell of raw beef
that I squeezed into rice grains in my hands.
She said, “He is so good.”
He is.
I announced, “I am going to break tradition
And not line the pan with grape leaves.
Maybe you guys had thin pans?
It’s a waste of leaves.”
Siti said that I was stubborn
just like my mother,
and I proudly said, “Yep,”
and they all laughed.
A song came on my playlist
by an African man
whose message was
to feed the poor during the holidays.
I told Siti that he was a lot like her
in that she had owned a restaurant,
fed the poor,
and welcomed black customers
in a time of segregation.
She nodded proudly in agreement.
At the end of the song,
the African man began preaching
about Jesus Christ.
Siti had been a devout Orthodox Christian,
so, I asked her, “Is Jesus different than you thought?”
She laughed and showed me a scene
where Jesus was standing right beside her.
She gave him a side-armed hug like pals.
He was not lit up in light
but looked human in his brown garments.
She pointed to the Christmas Star,
like the one we just saw a few nights ago,
with the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter
on the Winter Solstice.
She pointed to her chest
to show me that the Christmas Star shines there,
within us.
Not out there somewhere to be found,
Not a man to put on a pedestal to worship,
But Christ is the shining light within us.
As my star pulsed and glowed in my chest
they continued to watch me with love,
as I rolled the grape leaves
on this peaceful 2020 Christmas Eve,
supposedly alone.