Fuchsia, of all things

I have noted before that House of Dance was written in the wake of my friend Sandy's passing—that it began as a search to understand the gifts that might be yielded in a friend's final days.

I have not said this: After Sandy's sudden, inexplicable illness and death, her daughters celebrated her in a thousand ways—throwing parties in her name, upholding her traditions, giving gifts, insisting, Sandy would have wanted.... Among those gifts to me was a peach-colored sweater drawn from Sandy's closet, which evoked (through its color, through its spangling of beads) the glimmer of Sandy herself.

I bought the Christmas cactus that I've been photographing these past few days in honor of that sweater and in memory of Sandy. I thought it would be nice to have her color near. But ever since I moved the plant to a warmer spot in my window, it has been putting on a show—blooming in triplicate, deepening in color, yielding fuchsia, of all colors. Fuchsia. I wouldn't have thought these daring stigma possible, except that Sandy was just like that—always the first to notice (to celebrate) the thing that mattered most to you just then, forever bringing the birds to her garden and inviting you in.

Christmas is the creche scene we restore to the hearth. It is the blue lights on strangers' trees. It is last night's party at a neighbor's home, the late-night laughter of a home-from-college son, the right thing—found, wrapped, mailed. Christmas is the abundance of color and also the way that color returns us to old friends.