Exceptional Sometimes the word merry can be hard to find. A Special Christmas Gift by William Stephenson1 Christmas Story contest entry

Christmas was my father's favorite annual event. He lived to guide his four sons through a maze of tradition and surprises. He was the hero of my life. But when I was fourteen, my father was diagnosed with a very rare and incurable disease. For three years, he courageously battled that disease. I became his primary caregiver. My life as a teenager was over. I helped him with his baths and going to the bathroom. I dressed him, lit his cigarettes, did all his office files, and ensured he kept his appointments with clients when he was well enough. But when he was very ill and out of remission, I refused to leave his side. And yet, when Christmas came around, he forced himself to make it a joyful time for us all. He died suddenly, just before Christmas, when I was sixteen. I had a very difficult time accepting my father's death. Christmas went from being the highest to the lowest time of the year. We were destitute and missing a wonderful father and husband. After graduating high school, my family moved from southwestern New York to Southern California. But I returned that first Christmas to spend it with friends and grandparents. While I was there, I decided to visit my father's grave. I had not done so since his burial nearly two years before. It was Christmas Eve Day, and a tremendous snowstorm had occurred the night before. The vast cemetery my father had been buried in was impossible to drive into, let alone find his marker, just six inches above the ground. But I was determined. I began trudging through the cemetery in the deep snow, vaguely recalling that he was buried in our family plot near the veteran's section, which I also could not find. Too much snow, and it was getting dark, so I decided to give it up. Suddenly, as if a strange force was guiding me, I found myself kneeling in the snow and digging with my bare hands. And there before me was my father's gravestone. Cold and wet and exhausted, I laid down beside his gravestone and began to pray for the first time in two years. With tears in my eyes, I gave thanks to God for who my father was, what he had meant to me, and what I hoped to become. I then took some snow and covered up his gravestone again. My father gave me one last Christmas present: A sense of peace and acceptance I had never known. And I prayed, "He's yours now, Lord. He's all yours." I then knew I could enjoy the memories of those sixteen years we had shared. As I stepped away from his grave, I turned and said, "Merry Christmas, Dad. And in the stillness of the cemetery came the whisper of, "Merry Christmas, son." The legacy of that time with my father as he came to the end of his life would be to develop a counseling practice for those who were diagnosed with a terminal illness. For thirty years, more than 400 persons and their families received the Christmas gift my father had given to me. Recognized Author Notes For many people, Christmas is the darkest time of the year. I dedicate this story to them.

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