A Great Christmas Story Worth Passsing On...Please Pass It On, Too.

It's Christmas morning, 2007, 1:05 AM, as I write these words at my computer, and my husband is purring in sleep behind me like he does when he's worn-out tired,
and my heart is exploding with missing my dad.

Exploding with the absolute, numbing loss since he passed a month ago, the day after thanksgiving, after battling brain cancer for over a year.

My larger than life father, who hugged us more than we sometimes deserved, and praised and encouraged us for the smallest of victories and successes, which at times seemed
like too much praise (if that's even a possibility with kids), but looking back it became a normal part of his absolute belief in each of us kids and what we offered the world.

And there is a small box under our Christmas tree downstairs, marked "From Dad", just like every Christmas before today.

As long as I can remember, that carefully wrapped box has always just been sitting there on Christmas morning, waiting on my Dad to open it, although it was marked "From Dad", not "To Dad".

He would open it every year, usually while we were lost in playing with our newly acquired toys and games, and look through the pictures that it contained, while my Mom just quietly watched
him.

If we asked what the pictures were, he would only tell us," I'm just reliving some great times, which is my most amazing present, next to the ones you guys got me, of course!".

Every year, he would say that, and then put the box up on the shelf in his closet until the next Christmas.

He would add one picture a year to it's contents, that much our mom told us, although she stopped there in her insight.

He was 59 this year, and looked 40, especially when he smiled that wide open Irishman smile he had.

I'm his oldest daughter, 39 and holding...

I remember my mom saying that exact statement when she turned 39, and to the day he passed, my dad always repeated those words to anyone who ever asked my mom her age. It's one of those small, gentle, carefully loving ways he always respected her that seemed so different compared to other parents I watched and witnessed growing up.

His passing was obviously hard for all of us, especially at this time of the year, but somehow, after witnessing the last months of his life, we all know he's much happier not battling his fragile life anymore, as his body failed him time and time again as he battled that disease.

I won't elaborate about all the corny family stories he and my mom created in their 40 years together, although there are many.

These words are about that amazing box under the tree downstairs, marked "From Dad", just like every year before today.

My mom, sister and brother and their families are sleeping in the other rooms in the house, and we're all together this Christmas just for Dad.

One last Christmas morning together as a family, to open that box on his behalf, and say goodbye.

Normally, we would 'do' Christmas at our own homes, and then make the minivan trek to whoever was hosting the family get together, and spend a day just catching up.

Not today.

That box has engaged our curiosity once more, and this evening my mom told us the part of the story Dad left out.

She thought this year it was time to explain the box of photographs Dad has had waiting for him under the tree every year, including this one.

She pulled me, my sister and brother into her bedroom earlier tonight, and broke our hearts with the truth she shared about that box marked "From Dad".

I had never seen my brother cry so openly and with so little control until tonight, and, of course, my sister and I were blubbering, bawling teen age girls again, needing Dad to make it all better, but this time he was not physically present to help.

His spirit filled the room, though, and the ache in my heart subsides even now when I think of what that box meant to him.

The box marked "From Dad", my mom told us, began the third year of their marriage.

I was 1 1/2 years old, the same age Dad was when his father walked out on him, his mom and older brother.

His Dad apparently cleaned out all the bank accounts, cashed in the life insurance policies, and left town.

A preachers kid, no less.

Just walked away from the family obligations and the lives he had created, and never looked back.

Dad's mom became an overnight single mom in the early 50's, with two kids, 'working it out' on her own.

His mom remarried when he was 5, to a military guy, who turned the charm off and the violence on within months of moving the family to his new duty station.

Dad apparently learned early in life to hide their abuse ridden reality from the rest of the family, since you did not 'air dirty laundry', as his mother told him and his brother time and again.

Although Dad survived the abuse and family chaos, he never really settled into the healing part of his life until he met my Mom.

She was giving her testimony at a church young adult group, and Dad heard her speak and told the friend he was with he was going to 'marry that girl'.

We knew bits and pieces of these stories up until tonight.

Dad was always proud he met Mom while she was giving her testimony, and many times he had told us her loving nature helped him turn the corner in his own life.

The third year they celebrated Christmas together, Dad put a box under the tree on a whim, marked "From Dad"

Dad told mom, as she watched him put a picture of the the three of us inside the box and put it under the tree, that he knew we were gifts from God in his life.

Dad told Mom that he knew a full love, for the first time in his life, and that he wanted to add a picture each year of their life to that box, and let God, "Dad", give it to him, every Christmas, since he never really got any presents from his real Dad or step Dad in all his years of being a son.

He told Mom that he learned early not to be bitter about his prior family life, and that the more he focused on letting God be his Father and "Dad", the better perspective he was able to keep about the abuse he suffered.

He told Mom that night that his true Dad NEVER let him down, NEVER left him, was ALWAYS proud of him, and ALWAYS kept his word.

So he figured if he focused on THAT truth, rather than what he did not have, his reality would always be one of infinite possibility and expectations.

The 'whim' turned into decades of family pictures, a new one added every year, that were "From Dad".

Every year they reminded Dad that he was loved beyond measure, by a Father better than all others, and that his life was a blessing looking back, because it forced him to more easily lean on God's promises, since every earthly Dad had done nothing to confirm my Dad was loved, wanted or needed.

But his real "Dad", well, that was another story all together.

And Dad stood on that belief in his heart, every year since then.

In the morning, we will open that box, and tell Dad goodbye, one last time.

But this Christmas, Mom changed the words around a bit on the box.

This Christmas, it says "To Dad".

We're all sending "Home" the present we've had every year of our lives.

Dad.

The best Dad in the world.

From the best Father in the World.

Merry Christmas

Madison Tomlinson
Dec 25th, 2007