Have you guys seen this movie? It's from the Rankin-Bass collection of stop motion animation, and I remember our family owning a Beta tape of it when I was a kid. My mother eventually took it away and forbade me to watch it come the holiday season because it made me cry, and I'd wail the better part of the afternoon. I was then a child of four, and in the twenty years since forgot what is was about that claymation relic that affected me so.
In December of 2004 I flew back from NC to spend time with Mom...we were approaching it as quite possibly her last Christmas, and we were all about the nostalgia. "Remember the movie about the donkey?" I asked out of the blue within the first week I was home. Her eyes glistened as she singsonged sweetly, "NESTOR!" She tossed some plastic at me from her wallet and directed that I should order it from Amazon.com, and to rush the shipping.
When it arrived, we rushed through the healthy meal I had prepared (a broccoli and mushroom strata—I so dearly miss having a fellow health nut to cook for!), changed into fuzzy nightclothes and warmed water in the kettle for cider and sat in the living room illuminated by only the warm glow of the Christmas tree and the light-strung evergreen garland adorning the door frames. The house was hushed and life at peace as we gathered like giddy school children about to do something truly exciting. It sometimes isn't until you know the end is near that the past becomes so incredibly exhilarating.
And then, we remembered why this movie was so touching, and on a level basic enough that a four-year-old understood. Nestor, a donkey out-casted and unwanted because he was born with over-long ears, is thrown out into one frigid winter's night, to certain death. His mother, with unconditional love for her baby boy, runs out after him. She finds Nestor, and cradles him in her cocoon of warmth during the long night. The morning dawns and baby Nestor wakes to find his mother had been claimed by the cold, having given her life for his.
I think of my mother's sacrifices for me often, and especially with all of my latest medical happenings. You have to realize the bizarre existence I am in—I am seeing her doctors, her nurses...and I'm the patient this time. I told my dad yesterday that it was so weird the morning I had my CT Scan. I sat in the waiting room drinking the contrast and the thought struck, "Now I'm one of them." But it was her illness that shed such a spotlight on mine, and her struggles that have made mine less. The glory of mothers. And what better time to stop and appreciate the absolute love you are given just for being born than at Christmas, the mother of mother-holidays? Call your mom. Tell her you love her. You just never know what tomorrow will bring.
