Christmas eve 40 years ago my husband Howard and I prepared for an unusual, possibly depressing, Christmas holiday because my stepfather, Jim, had terminal cancer.
At the time, as newlyweds living in Duncan on Vancouver Island, we had to take the ferry to reach my parents' home in West Vancouver. A torrential downpour greeted us on the North Shore, the weather thus matching our moods. As we pulled up to my childhood home, its Christmas lights transfixed me, transporting me back in time to when my sister was still alive and my brother home, versus half a world away in Australia.
I entered the house through the back door into the kitchen where Jim's well-stocked "pharmacy" stood as the ammunition in his war against pain and illness. A heaviness hung in the air as if the spirit of Christmas had yet to make an appearance, or had refused to board the ferry with us, preferring instead to remain behind on the Island with all of our friends and neighbours. So we decided to make an early night of it and all went to bed.
I was the first to awaken on Christmas morning. Everyone else in the household was still peacefully asleep so even though it was only 7 a.m., I decided to call my best friend Rita back on Vancouver Island. After all, her giggling children would have awakened her hours earlier.
"Hello," she answered in a weak, crackly voice.
"Rita, are you all right?" I asked.
"Who is this?" a total stranger replied.
Uh-oh! Apparently the busy holiday phone lines had crossed resulting in awakening an elderly woman. I apologized for waking her, but she said, "Not to worry. It is nice to have someone to talk to, as I don't have anything to do today, nor anyone to talk to."
No one is a stranger to me, so we began chatting.
I was curious where this woman lived. "Burnaby," she said. About 10 miles away. I used to be a PBX switchboard operator and know that when many phones were in use back then the "wires" could get crossed. But how could this be? She only lived a few miles away and her phone number and area code weren't even close to Rita's.
She said that her name was Faith and that she was an 80-year-old widow. Her deceased husband, Dick, and she did not have any children. She continued that she had no reason to get up, as she had no one to share Christmas with.
She was glad I phoned: "A bit of a Christmas gift." She was all alone, while we at least had each other. Yet, she considered this call to be a gift! Faith and I talked for an hour. My mother Ellen awakened in the meantime so I asked her if Faith could share Christmas dinner with us and she said "Yes." Faith hung up the phone, got dressed, and caught a bus for her visit. Little did the bus driver or us know that he would really be delivering a Christmas miracle.
Excitedly anticipating the arrival of our guest, our home's atmosphere was transformed from doom and gloom into joy. I met the "gift" of Faith at the bus stop; we smiled at each other. After dinner, Faith and I donned our coats in preparation to drive her home but we were sidetracked by a miracle so extraordinary that we are still in awe of it after all of these years.
Faith and my mother were saying their last goodbyes when my mother realized that we had not shared last names.
"What is your last name?" my mother asked her, to which Faith replied, "Holden."
"No," my mother said.
"That's our last name. What is your last name?" We all experienced the shock of our lives when Faith, looking confused, repeated, "That is my last name. Holden. H-o-l-de-n."
I had never told Faith our last name, and this was years
before the Internet, so she could not have looked us up. What are the odds? The same last name, Holden, spelled the exact same way! How had we been divinely put together with someone with the same family name? What a miraculous, divine coincidence! Still in shock (and our coats), we sat down on the living room couch beside the ticking grandfather clock, unprepared for even more as-yet-to-berevealed surprises as Faith shared the story of her life.
Her husband was from England, as was my stepfather, Jim, with both families migrating to Winnipeg.
Both Dick and Jim were the second of four children, with the same combination of brothers and sisters in the same birth order. Faith and my mother had attended the same high school.
An amazing list of coincidences, as if the two women were reading from identical books of life, reiterating one similar experience after another.
How was it possible to dial a long distance number on Christmas morning, and end up connecting with a "local" person who needed us as much as we needed her?
It is a Christmas and a miracle we will never forget.
And the clincher: Faith revealed that her phone number was unlisted. So even if we had wanted to locate her, we could not have, adding even more mystery to this Christmas morning miracle!
The Holdens stayed friends until Faith passed away a few years after their meeting.
Mary Ellen graduated from Handsworth secondary in 1969, and is the author of the books Expect Miracles and A Christmas Filled with Miracles (under the name Mary Ellen AngelScribe).
Although she now lives in Oregon, she has been on the North Shore for the past year helping to take care of her 92-year-old mother Ellen who is currently in Lions Gate Hospital.
