Leaving Room For Hope: Stories Round the Table 1

Lily Cathcart December 02, 2025 1 0

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Read and listen to our first Advent Story Round the Table written and read by Lily Cathcart.

I keep thinking I’ve forgotten something but a glance to my left tells me the three most important things are there. On top of a tightly packed bag of stylishly understated Christmas presents sit three bright packages with cartoon penguins and comical snowmen bouncing across the designs.

One present for each year of Beth I’ve missed, I remind myself. As if I could really forget. As if the sound of the hurt in my sister's voice over the phone will ever truly leave my head. The voice that always broke a bit more as I failed to leave room in my life for them, missing yet another Christmas, yet another chance to meet her baby.

But not this year, this year I have made sure to leave room for home, if they’ll still have me. I have changed so much since I saw them all last — travelled the world, worked on projects they can't imagine. I’ve even worked on myself, which is a project I suspect some of them will never leave room for. 

Memories of too many family arguments surface in my mind, overlapping and getting louder and louder until I can hardly hear myself think. The urge to run away threatens to swallow me up.

Deep breaths, take a moment.

I pull into a lay-by. 

Thank you God that it’s there, just where I need it.

I take my hands from the wheel and close my eyes as if calm and confidence might be hidden on the inside of my eyelids.

Ugh, what am I doing? I look over at the presents. The smiles of the cartoon snowmen seem fake all of a sudden, as if they are asking me: ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’

I don’t know, is it?

Should I just post the presents and go somewhere else? Will my family really want to see me after so long away, so much change, and so many arguments that we will all have to try and forget?

My hand reaches for the satnav, looking for a hotel or a post office, looking for some easier way out.

Into the silence and the panic my phone chimes lighting up the screen: a picture of little Beth appears, sitting on the kitchen table with a big grin and a packet of mushrooms. 

A message appears below her joyful face:
‘Hope the journey is going well, we can’t wait to see you!
Do you still like mushrooms in your chilli?’

I laugh. I notice a tear rolling down my cheek washing away a few of my worries with it. All at once a different memory comes back to me. The sound of my sister’s voice when I told her I was coming home for Christmas this year. It was a sound I hadn’t heard for a while, she sounded happy, she sounded hopeful.

‘I can’t wait for you to meet Beth’ she said, 
and I could hear the smile in her voice over the phone, despite the rocky signal in the hills. 
‘Me either.’ I’d said to her.

I really can’t wait to meet her, she’s a part of me, I’m her family.

She’s my niece and I’m her adventuring aunt. Who else is going to teach her about the stars, help her learn about the big wide world beyond her walls and safe garden fences. I get to find out what she likes and drive her mum to distraction with encouraging it, I get to discover what my sister is like as a mum, whether she has improved her technique since being my big sister.

I may not know what to expect with everyone else, but with my sister, with my niece, I can be hopeful and expect a welcome.
A welcome and some mushrooms.

I take my hand away from the satnav, my sister’s address still shining expectantly on its screen.

I look back at my phone and think about a table with silly Christmas napkins, a place waiting for me, and the chatter of people all around; people who know me, and love me.

‘I love mushrooms!’ I type and glance at the satnav again ‘Not far now, see you soon.’

The last few miles melt away and a hopeful smile fills my face even though I am nervous pulling in to the drive. The house looks much the same as it used to, although the tricycle by the door is a vast improvement from the rickety thing we used to ride as kids.

I glance one more time at the bag of presents, the lively cartoons feeling more fitting now than they had seemed earlier. I imagine her opening them and seeing things I wanted as a kid: a bag for all her little three year old treasures, a book about children living all around the world, and a soft brown bear with white paws wearing a pair of cute red dungarees.

I let out a long breath, hopeful smile still in place, and get out of the car. The doorbell seems louder than I remember and when the door opens my sister is older than I remember. Her smile is hopeful too. I wave almost apologetically, my legs stuck to the step. She rolls her eyes at me with a laugh, just like she used to and pulls me in for a hug. 
‘Hello you’ she whispers.
I feel like I can’t breathe, almost dropping my precious bag of presents in the process. But it feels good, like my body needed it. 
She spies the bag. ‘We’ve left room under the tree if you want to put them there.’
I nod, but my words escape me, stolen by an irrepressible smile as another figure approaches the door. A little girl with brown hair, a hand tentatively, hopefully, waving at me and wearing a very cute pair of red dungarees.

Lily Cathcart

Music in the audio version 'Chasing the Light' by Northern Heart licensed by Sanctus Media from www.Artist.io.