Over the decades, I have experienced many sorts of what we might call “Christmas Spirit.” When I was a boy, the spirit was magical and wondrous. I will never forget the Sears & Roebuck Christmas Wish Book as long as I draw breath. It was the scripture of Christmas.
A decade or so later, my Christmas spirit broadened to include the joys of parties with friends, visits with distant relatives, meeting new people and making new friends. I began getting out into the world.
Time passed. I found myself sipping adult beverages while assembling fiendishly complicated toys on the kitchen floor at a wee small hour of the morning. “Does this look like a tricycle to you?” I asked my wife.
“No. Have some coffee and try again.”
Those days seemed to drag on forever, but in retrospect, they were brief. Soon, the children were only home for a week or so during the Christmas season and the toys gave way to travel tickets and cars.
For the past twenty years or so, my Christmas spirit has been stable. You might even say it has grown stale. That changed last year.
Yesterday, I telephoned my son.
“Hello?”
“Good morning, son! I just wanted to call and congratulate you. It’s been one year today since your re-birth!”
“Yes, it has.”
We chatted for a minute and hung up. It was December 19, 2009, a Saturday, when I received the call that my son was gravely ill. He was in emergency surgery. He had peritonitis. The odds of survival were around 50-50, give or take. He was lucky. He survived.
I shall never forget that Christmas day. After a hasty trip to the hospital in New Mexico, I managed to catch influenza. I returned home Christmas Eve and collapsed on the sofa.
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| Ben |
I awoke early on Christmas morning. The house was silent and empty. There were no decorations or presents. No Christmas dinner baked in the oven or bubbled on the stove. The light from the picture window revealed a heavy snowfall was underway. It was beautiful and healing. This might have been my first or second “white Christmas” ever. Yet I was numb, inert. All I could do was lie there in silent prayer that, in the fullness of time, my son would return to me.
A few nerve-wracking weeks later, everything changed. Family filled the house and Christmas dinner was underway. My son, thin, weak and grumpy, sat in the den and watched as his children joined in the Christmas melee under the tree.
At that moment, I wanted for nothing. Better still, I have all the Christmas spirit I shall ever need.
May Providence smile on you every day.
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