Page 33 of A Miracle on Hope Street
I press send, and then I send a similar personalised message to widower called Marian who. at sixty-four years old, has no family to spend her Christmas with as they are all travelling the world.
I know exactly what it feels like when you are waiting on a hug, or a smile, or the touch of a hand and it never comes. I know what it feels like to be in a room full of people and yet to feel the suffocation of loneliness because you just can’t seem to connect with anyone around you any more. I know the fear of trying something new, so Marian’s story touches me deeply, as does that of Nicholas, a pianist who lives on the other side of town and who once was the finest concert pianist in Dublin but who hasn’t played any music in years, mostly because of his neighbours who keep reporting him for noise pollution. His chatty ways in his letter really did make me smile, even though beneath it all I can tell he is crying out for some love and affection.
Next, I extend an invitation to Molly Flowers, her young husband and their two-year-old son who, having faced redundancy have no idea how they are going to afford presents or a decent Christmas at all.
I wipe my brow, exhausted already as the emotions from every single person who wrote to me fill my soul. But I’m not finished yet. I take a deep breath and, finally, I write to Paul, an unemployed recovering drug addict who has been cut off from his family and who can’t bear to spend Christmas in the hostel where he is clutching to life, living in fear that he might fall off the wagon.
I lean back in my chair and look up at the ceiling, my head spinning as emotion engulfs me for people like Paul who are so close to giving up. He is just twenty years old. Just a baby, really, and it makes me so angry when I see how some people get it so bloody hard. There are a million Pauls out there, so many others from all walks of life in my inbox that I want to reach out to, and I feel drained at the thought of not being able to do so much more.
I think of the lady, Bernadette from Dublin, who wrote to me over a year ago pleading for advice as to how to be reunited with her children after a long mental illness. I would love to have invited her too, but instead I’ve stuck to people from this town as Dublin might just be a bit too far for her to travel and, who knows, hopefully she has had her happy ever after by now. I think of many others, random names that go through my head, but I need to switch off. I can only do so much and I’m exhausted already.
As daylight seeps through the curtains, I get back into bed with tears streaming down my face as the reality of what people go through at this time of year hits me like a ton of bricks. Before my father took so ill, I used to shell out replies to people from so many different walks of life with my oh-so-easy words and I never looked back, rarely thinking of them again, but things are different now. For the first time I now hope I might actuallymakea difference. I just hope they have the courage to reply.
Chapter Fifteen
Five Days before Christmas
I wake up, groggy from the wine and late night, and it takes me a few moments to slot everything into place again as the words I wrote through the night swirl through my head.
I think of each of the people I have written to and how they might react this morning when they wake up to the message I sent them. I think of young Kelly, dreading her first Christmas without her little girl; I think of Marian, the widow whose daughters are travelling the world and whose confidence is at an all-time low; I think of the boldness of Nicholas’s music, who still has so much to give to the world if he was only given a welcoming ear; I think of the Flowers family, especially Molly, as she battles financial difficulty in a world where she feels so alone; and I think of Paul Connolly, lying in a cold hostel so far from home as he struggles to make it through each day.
I just hope that my words to them might help them take action and that they might find some comfort, knowing that someone out there still cares.
I sit up in the bed, invigorated at the chance that just one of them might reply.
My heart thumps when I see I’ve got mail in my inbox on my phone. One is from single parent, Kelly, and I shake as I open the message with trepidation, hoping so much that she will come along.
Dear Ruth, Is this really you? Kelly x
That’s all she says and I cannot help but raise a smile. I had kind of expected this response from at least one of my potential guests, so I reply immediately.
Yes, it’s me, Kelly! It’s a genuine invitation. I know it’s maybe a bit overwhelming to say the least, but if you need some reassurance, I’ll be at Gloria’s Café in town today at 11.00 a.m. if you want to pop in and say hello. If you come in and see me and don’t want to say hello, that’s fine too, but this is all very genuine and very much from the heart. Either way, it’s just to reassure you that this is a true invitation. I hope you can make it on Christmas Day. Let me know in your own time.
Lots of love, Ruth.
I have a shower, fix my hair and apply some light makeup and an extra spray of perfume, take a peep in at Bertha and smile, grab my keys and put on my coat and hat and set off for Gloria’s where I plan to check in with Michael to update him on our guest list. I have butterflies just thinking of seeing him again, and I find myself smiling as I walk through the puddles on the pavement when I picture his face and his arms and his shoulders and how his eyes dance when he laughs. His humour and his tenderness and how he makes me feel so at ease. What on earth is happening to me?
The next reply comes on my way to the café and I stop under the canopy of a newsagent’s to check what it says.
Dear Ruth,
I very much look forward to taking up your most kind invitation to dinner.
How kind of you to give just a glimmer of hope to people like me who are trapped in the darkness of a very lonely existence, minute by minute, hour by hour of each and every day.
The feeling of being unwanted, unloved and unnecessary in this life is one of the most overwhelming emotions I have ever felt, and it has crept up on me slowly until it now has a firm grip on my very being that makes every day a challenge and a battle to get through.
So I must say thank you, Ruth. Thank you for reaching out. Thank you for showing that someone still cares. I write this reply with a tear in my eye but a smile in my weary old heart for you have touched me and made me feel alive again with something to look forward to. I don’t know you, Ruth, but I already believe you may have saved me from utter despair. Imagine the power of a simple invitation!
I shall wear my finest clothes on Christmas Day and my mission between now and then is to find my singing voice, which has been lost for a very long time but I know it’s still in there somewhere. I promise to keep looking for it! What a truly wonderful message to wake up to. You have made my day!
Would it be rude to ask you to meet me in person, just to say hello and to break the ice before the big day? I’ve left my number below.
With season’s greetings,
Nicholas
Yes! Nicholas’s heartfelt response makes me tingle from head to toe and I stand there in the rain, letting his words sink in. I knew he was an excellent guest for the dinner because to me he represents a smothered talent, a creative spark that just needed to reignite no matter what, and I hope that by meeting him I might be able to help him bring his true self out again, and yes, I think it’s a great idea to meet each of my guests in person, if at all possible, before Christmas Day. I will call him to make arrangements.
