Cradle: A Christmas Tale

I have to be honest. When Mary first told me, I was a little upset. 

We had known each other since we were kids. I thought I knew her as well as I knew myself. When she agreed to marry me, it was the most natural thing in the world, and I never expected any kind of surprise. Certainly not to hear her tell me, one day, that she was pregnant, before we ever had a chance to consummate, before the wedding could take place, while she was away, while she was off helping take care of her kinswoman.

So of course I felt betrayed.

We never argued about it. I’m sure she knew how I felt. She knew me as well I knew her, of course. What I did was bury myself in my work. This wasn’t so unusual, in one sense. These were hard times, after all. It wasn’t so easy to be a Jew, which was why so many of us yearned for the Messiah. 

Later, when I understood who our child was, I did feel a little foolish.

I set out to make a cradle. I chose the wood, as sturdy as I could find (and that took some doing, which meant some traveling, which I was very ready to do, which in hindsight was probably the worst of what I did), and I set about my business. I told her nothing about it. I just kept myself busy.

Later, as her term progressed, the Romans insisted we travel for the census. I was devastated. I certainly wasn’t going to lug a cradle around. This did nothing to help my mood. I tried my best. By this time I better understood what was happening, but that didn’t fix everything. Things aren’t easy to forget, sometimes. Not when you don’t react well the first time. She was an angel, and I wasn’t, but she wasn’t perfect. Full of grace, certainly. Well, as I said, we never argued about it. But she knew. Of course she did. She became quiet for her own reasons, and she had every right.

So it was a quiet journey. There were so many travelers because of the census we couldn’t find a place to stay. Now I felt humiliated. I had let my pride get in the way. There was no use denying it anymore. Maybe I had never been good enough for her. Maybe I could never be a good enough father.

We were shown a stable. It was cold that night, and then she went into labor. I was frantic. I looked around, and found a box stuffed with hay for feed. It was about as crude as any carpentry I had ever seen, and then I realized, this had been my work, one of the first things I had ever made. I recognized all the details. I was ashamed all over again.

But then I reconsidered. I mean, what were the odds?

I had been prepared. I had been ready. Even when I failed, when I spent all that time being unworthy, somehow I had set in motion preparations for this exact moment. I had made a cradle we could use after all. I had done something right.

From that moment, even before she gave birth, things were different. I think she knew. I think she saw new strength in me, just at the right moment, just when she needed me most. There was a new grace about her, and our son came into the world, and we were a family, and the moment I saw him, my world transformed. I had been so busy resenting things I had never even considered being a father, what that meant, how it would change everything. I had never thought about being a father. I had never been very good around children. I didn’t think I had it in me.

It wasn’t just who he was, but rather something in me, when I saw him for the first time, when I held him in my arms. I was in love all over again.

I treasured every moment from then on. I mean it. There was no longer any doubt, not in my mind, Mary’s, and certainly never my child’s, certainly nothing I ever saw, even before I knew, I understood, and that was a process for both Mary and myself. It’s one thing to be told something, another to experience it, to see it take shape, to see your child’s future emerge before you, to see that he is as special in the world as he is to you.

We worked alongside each other when he was old enough. He would say the most astonishing things, earlier than most children learn to speak, just as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He was smarter than me, smarter than Mary, and it was just idle chatter, busy talk, while we worked.  I loved him more than anything.

Mary always understood him better. Of course she did. Eventually she even knew what to do with him, which was just to encourage him out in the world. I watched, continually astonished. I had no further part to play. I was the carpenter, the cradle, he outgrew. 

But I was always proud. I never boasted. I didn’t feel worthy. One day, he said to me, “Forgive yourself.” I had never told him about my doubts. He just knew. He seemed to know everything. Even when we worked alongside each other, I never had to teach him anything. He just set about alongside me. Maybe I made it easy for him, maybe I encouraged him by always involving him, including him, talking about what was important to me. That’s something he always seemed to know about anyone he met, what was important to them, which became important to him, too.

So in a small way I had a part in who he became. I like to think so, anyway.

I never did forget about that night, about the miracles that took place. One of them was just for me, the culmination of a different journey. When Mary would kid me about that old box I would insist on lugging with us, I would join in, make a joke or two myself, but I kept that thing the rest of my life. It was the cradle of everything.