✦ LIBER ✦

The Most Perfect Gift

✍ Scribed by Furey, Hubert

Publisher: Flanker Press
Year: 2018
Tongue: en-US
Weight: 242 KB
Category: Fiction
City: St. John's
ISBN: 1771176997

No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.

✦ Synopsis

"Christmas is a special time of year. It is a time to gather around a festive table with family, to visit and enjoy the company of old friends who haven't been seen in a long time, to enjoy the aura of peace and goodwill which emanates from brightly coloured lights and decorations which are everywhere to be seen, to laugh and sing as if yesterday never happened and tomorrow were yet to come. Above all it is a time to exchange gifts and tokens which are symbolic of the love they represent and the deep emotions they evoke. For many, such gifts and tokens are practical and concrete, tangible proof of the feelings held in the heart, of the passion that still remains, chosen to satisfy some perceived need, with usually not a lot of time involved in the selection. For the main characters in the stories herein, the gifts they give are neither mundane nor hastily chosen, but are the product of profound inner change and, in the case of two of the characters, follow deep mental anguish. For Rachel Kearning in "The Most Perfect Gift," the idea of the most perfect gift comes only after a painful response to the most brutal assault on her deep love for her husband, and her acceptance of the child he fathered while broken himself by the death of his young son. For old Levi Cohen, in "A Very Blue Christmas," the gift he gives Nora Fennessey becomes the perfect act of atonement for years of torment over his failure to be grateful for Nora's protection of his sick grandson. And what could be a more perfect gift than offering one's life to save the lives of others, as Jimmy Blanchard does in "Return to Brine Cove," to seek redemption, in some measure, for the criminal life of his youth and the hurt and suffering he inflicted on others? As representative examples of humanity, each of the characters, in their own unique way, reminds us that Christmas, above any other time, is a time to give the most perfect gift."--