U.: 'a Christmas Eve'

. In a couple of hours it would be Christmas Yet, the old man was dying.. Why.. How could that be? I was five and in a pensive mood, on that Christmas Eve. A believer, till then, since I had believed with all my might That no one could be dying at Christmas. At the stroke of midnight I told myself that Anybody should be forbidden to die on Christmas Day I kept repeating the same few words like a mantra Until I fell asleep. But the old man couldn't listen to me. He was dead. When I got the news, I told myself that Anybody should be forbidden to trust in God.. Of course, it was not God who had to be in the picture so Badly drawn by the naïve mind of a child. Nevertheless, on that Christmas my inner world of Hope died with the old man..