Title: Everything and Nothing Summary: I ask for nothing. Notes: A response to the Haven's 155 word "Letter to Santa" Challenge-- exactly 155 words. Merry Christmas 2003! 'This Christmas, I ask for nothing. This Christmas, I give thanks.' She sits snuggled beneath a time-worn Navajo blanket, pen to the final pages of a journal she began long ago. Outside, the first stars appear as twilight fog rolls off the half-frozen lake, creeping up the trunks of twisted oaks recently bereft of their brilliant leaves. 'I pray for the family who sacrificed so that we might have another chance. I pray for their forgiveness. Their understanding will come in time.' The hiss of logs burning on the open hearth fails to stir the two tousled heads that rest before the crackling blaze. One great and one small. Her men. She beams down at them, her soul on fire. The emotions they create in her are violent in their intensity, glorious and painful, like a metamorphosis. 'I ask for nothing. Everything I could ever want is right here. My child, my family.' She smiles.
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