Two Turtle Doves

I push the church gym door open with my hands. Oooh, they're cold; I put them in my jean pockets. "What can we do?" Is the unspoken question on all of our minds and hearts, as we volunteers look at all the disorganized garbage bags full of Christmas stockings and gifts. Soon there is a row of tables set up and volunteers with reflective safety vests are sorting stockings by age and gender. My hands are still in my pockets. It is too early in the morning for thinking.

I pick up a stocking and examine it closely, trying to classify it. My vision is a little blurry, and I hold the stocking further from my face, guessing that I need new glasses. I stare at the pencils and calculator and wonder who would put a calculator in a child's stocking, when a second-time volunteer attracts my attention, by saying "Hey, you guys"--addressing my sister and me--"come over here, I have a job that'll be a little easier for you."

She means well, I think to myself, trying not to be a little injured. Today is not supposed to be about me anyway. The very friendly volunteer leads Jess and me over to a mountainous pile of white plastic bags. "All of these need to go in numerical order. The signs here and here show where the numbers are. See, they are 8000-8099 and 8100-8199 and so on. Okay?" I peer at the posted signs on the wall. Oh joy! They look like library numbers. "Okay!" I'm beaming from ear to ear now. I can do this!

Some of the plastic bags have come untied, and need to be retied. I dream about the journey these sacks must have traveled, littered with obstacles, in order to arrive stretched out and without a knot. I pull the bags' mouths into a taut knot and tote them over to their designated spot on the gym floor. As I go back for another two bags, for that is all I can carry at once, I absent-mindedly massage my hands. I look down at them. They are a little cramped from the tugging and are beginning to itch from all the dirt. My! How dirty my hands are! I glance from the white plastic bags to my now black palms. How did that happen?

While listening to "Jingle Bell Rock" on the radio, I clumsily adjust my fingers, trying to wiggle them into a position that does not completely crush my thumbs in the process. After several attempts, my thumbs cramp up in protest, and I have to stop for a minute. Maybe I'll go wash my hands, I thought, oddly believing this would appease my thumbs. I begin to wonder how poor dogs must feel, not having thumbs at all, I being a firm believer that animals do feel something.

After all the bags have been sorted and resorted, I get to do the fun stuff. I am now instructed by the captain to sort all of the toys into age and gender. "Yes, Captain", I reply gleefully, after all, it isn't every day you meet a captain.

Too soon it is lunch time, and we all flock to the kitchen to pick our poison and pizza slices. My hands work autonomously, feeding the sausage and pepperoni pieces onto my plate. I sit down and chat casually with a volunteer about morning sickness, hers not mine, like old friends. Even the captain sits with us and shares in our conversation, even though she is interrupted by her cell-phone halfway through lunch.

My fingers tap my sister's wrist so she will show me the time. It is time to go. I walk out of the church and it is colder than before. Back my hands go, this time into jacket pockets. Cold on the outside, but warm on the inside. That's just how I like it.


On the second day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me... two hands, two thumbs, and a volunteer named Mary.