I’m behind deadline on
writing this article. This morning I walked out the garage and unto my
driveway. A breeze blew lightly skipping the yellow, orange, and red dried
leaves. I watched them dance as my feet crunched through them and I thought to
myself, how many times I had done this throughout my life. I wondered about
what I was going to write.
I took in the cool crisp, clean air deep into my being,
thanking God for another day. I looked one more time at the crimson waltz
around me, turned once again and walked inside.
Here I am, thinking about the past year and Christmas. How
quickly time has gone. How quickly it goes every year now at my age. It is not
hard to think back at my youth.
I remember times of heavy snow fall as we had last year. I
remember that when we lost electric it would be for days. One year a telephone
pole came down right across the street. We had a gravity fed oil heater and a
wood burner in the kitchen and we were warm. I remember my father talking the
telephone company into laying and later cutting up that creosote soaked
firewood for us. It burned very hot. Freezer items had gone out to the snow
where it was buried with a piece of plywood placed over top to keep the wild
from it.
There were other times I remember that we would journey to
the Christmas party the Allen Wood Steel Union would hold in union hall. We had
gone with our neighbors the Dunn’s. Then there was the stuffed dog which to
today I can still see in my mind. I hated that! I wanted a toy gun. After all I
was a little boy. I remember Christmas shopping for Baccala in Norristown at a
little but popular Italian market in Norristown, Shetone’s. I remember the few
times we went out to eat. It was at a little bar in trooper where we lived. We
had hamburgers. My dad had a beer with it, he did like his beer.
I laugh at myself. I remember later when I was a young man
and my brother and I was in the Army. I remember my father, that when my
brother couldn’t be home as I, that he kept the Christmas tree up until March
so that he would have a Christmas. As a father with boys of my own and one in
the Army I am reminded. I know my father’s feelings as I speak to my son Mark
whether we will see him or not for Christmas and would have no doubt that I too
would go through such lengths.
I thought of this past summer, money tight, business
struggling a little I had a red bag with approximately $50. of change of sorts
and papers for my business. As I was helping a child bring an electric wheel
chair to the car her family member was in, I became distracted and when I unloaded my
cart, must have forgotten that little red bag. It was gone. After kicking
myself that Friday I had a quiet chat with the Lord. “Let it help whoever has
it”, I prayed. I left it go.
I was also reminded of others who because of their own lack
of self discipline squandered 10’s of thousands of dollars. It hurt me to think
of that. Then as I balanced everything I was more thankful to have lost the $50.
than to have had the opportunity to blow through a lot more.
As I am looking at Thanksgiving and preparing myself for Christmas, I am thankful that Christmas is not about
the next gift. It is about those times that I remember and learn from. It is
about my next breath. It is about giving or giving up. It is about family and
looking at my two new grandson’s and realizing in my heart that I live on in
their tiny beings. It is about looking up and taking in all of the stars that
God has placed in front of me finding one bright one and remembering that on
that day Jesus was born to give to us. In so doing we have rebirth every day of
our lives, just by following The Star.
On behalf of my family.
We would like to wish all of you and in particular those who cannot be home for
any of the holiday which are in front of us a Happy Thanksgiving, a Happy Chanukah,
a Merry Christ centered Christmas and a Happy New Year. -Wil
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