Understanding

This Saturday, I was wrapping presents with my Mum... Soft, winter sunlight drifted through the windows and gauzy curtains, blanketing the kitchen in the cheerful glow I remember from my childhood. I cut pieces of paper, taped edges and signed tags as we spoke of nothing and everything... and then she paused for a moment.

"So." She said, setting down her pen. "Do you celebrate Christmas?"

It was a strange question, one that I hadn't been expecting. I thought about it for a second, and then answered: "Of course I do... But I also celebrate Yule. That's technically my Christmas."

"What's that?" She asked. I explained that Yule is a celebration of love and light on the darkest day of the year... it's a call for the sun to return to us- one that has been uttered since the dawn of time.

"What religion are you?" She whispered, then.

I told my Mother when I was fifteen that I was Pagan. I told her every year since then... it was something that she didn't want to hear or acknowledge, and it was a wedge between us that hurt me to the core. I would patiently listen to her lecture on the son of God, then try to interject how I saw things... to admonishments of hell and brimstone. It was something that we could not agree on, and something that she would not let go of.

"I'm Pagan, Mum." I told her again.

"What does that... mean?" She asked.

And for the first time in seven years... she listened.