Monday 24 December 2012

The Christmas Tapestry

Jonathan Jefferson Weeks is worried that the Christmas Eve service at his father's Detroit church will be ruined.  They have just discovered a leak in the sacristy wall which has left a terrible stain; later the plaster falls off revealing a hole.

However, on a cold, blustery day, they find a tapestry in a second hand shop to cover up the hole.  While waiting for the bus outside, they meet an elderly woman who offers them some tea.  They accept and invite the woman home to their house.

Back at the parsonage, Jonathan suggests that they hang the tapestry immediately and invite the elderly lady to watch.  They place it over the hole in the sacristy wall for all to see.  The woman gasps, recognizing the tapestry:  it is the one she sewed decades ago for her wedding day!  It even has her initials in the corner.  The lady explains that she and her husband were married in Germany.  During the Second World War, because they were Jews, they were put in cattle cars and shipped to concentration camps, never to see each other again.  She assumed that her husband had perished there.

Upon hearing her story, the Weeks offer her the tapestry but she declines saying that it is already right where it belongs.  They invite her to the Christmas Eve service at their Baptist church, but she politely declines, saying that she celebrates Hannukah rather than Christmas.  Pastor Weeks then drives her home to her apartment.

Three days later, Pastor Weeks is paid a visit by the plasterer who has come to repair the damaged wall.  Upon viewing the tapestry, the plasterer gasps that he knows who made it -- his wife!  Pastor Weeks says he knows where his wife is living and offers to take him there.  They race to the apartment where a tearful reunion takes place -- all thanks to the Christmas tapestry.

Note:  The Christmas Tapestry is loosely based on two true stories, one that took place in New York State and the other in Canada.





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