Being six, paralyzed, and in Hedgecroft Hospital away from my family was no way to prepare for Christmas. Despite my fears that I would celebrate Christmas in the hospital, Dr. Cameron Montgomery said I could go home on a two-day pass.
At home on Christmas morning, Dad carried me downstairs clad in my pajamas. He set me on the floor by the Christmas tree. My brother, Charles, and sister, Carolyn, took turns passing me the gifts Santa Claus left for me. The prior Christmas I had been given a bicycle I could no longer ride. That did not matter anymore. What mattered was being home with my family again.
After opening presents, Mom prepared a breakfast of pancakes, sausage, and orange juice. Gone were the smells of medicine, bedpans, and soiled sheets.
Prior to our yearly Emmott Family Christmas at my grandparents’ home, Mother dressed me. She put on my brown orthopedic shoes. Brown corduroy pants and a long-sleeved Sears flannel shirt. No belt.
Dad drove me over to my grandparents’ large white Cape Cod-style home built in 1937 in the center of Emmottville’s 100 acres. I sat alongside my many cousins and 16 aunts and uncles. My grandfather had cut down a pine tree that was adorned with lights, ornaments, and garland. To me, the Christmas tree looked as bright and as beautiful as the Bethlehem Star must have appeared to the Three Wisemen.
After four months of rehabilitation, I could stand alone for a few minutes (as portrayed in this Christmas photograph taken that day). But I could not walk well. Dad asked me if I wanted to show everyone my progress in learning to walk again. I agreed with a smile. Dad lifted me to my feet. Mom knelt in front of me. I took a couple of steps and fell forward toward the floor. Mom caught me in her arms.
Looking back decades later, I have learned we are all God’s fallen falling creatures at times in our lives. At those times, especially at Christmas, when others fall, we should all do our part to catch them with arms of love and acceptance as my mom did me. Sometimes that is the only thing we can do to serve God and celebrate the blessings and joy of Christmas. Can’t we all make room in the inn of our hearts to do that for our brothers and sisters?
I don’t recall the Christmas gifts I received from under the tree that year. The presents didn’t matter to me. The presence of love from my family and from God was the true gift that mattered. The loving care my mother took to catch me when I fell. The kind of love born in a manger in Bethlehem on the first Christmas for humankind. The love of God catches all His children when they are broken, sick, or have lost a loved one, or like me in a hospital paralyzed at the age of six.
The Advent darkness of polio I experienced before I came home on my two-day hospital pass disappeared. At home that Christmas, as I sat with my family by the Christmas tree, the light of God’s love descended on me. God illumined the joy in my heart that I had not seen as a patient with polio. That holy light I experienced that Christmas day still shines in me and in all I strive to do until I strive no more.
God has spoken in Scripture of witnessing the Bethlehem Star.
Matthew 2:10
When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
Let us pray together.
Dear God, it is true that I enjoy the gift of getting and giving things. Yet, the gifts of Your love and acceptance of me are the things I treasure every day, not just Christmas.
God, I thank You for the birth of Your son, Jesus. In the manger under the Bethlehem Star, more than a child was born. Born were Your love for me and all creation. Born was the gift that transforms death into eternal life. The light that reveals the unseen beauty and meaning within dark passages of life and the living of it. Amen
If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist
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