Christmas, 1991 was magical. Emma was two years old. The beloved Swede had been working on finishing a maple table and chair set for her as a Christmas gift. Both sets of grandparents were coming to visit. None were staying at our house, so I didn't have that stress. They were all coming for Christmas dinner, however.
My dad had sent Emma a video of Mickey's Christmas Carols so that she could practice singing Christmas songs for him before he came to visit. When I called to thank him, the phone rang for a long time before he answered. He said he'd been in the basement working on Christmas presents. He was making Emma a wooden nativity puzzle.
Christmas morning dawned and the above picture shows Emma's reaction when she came down the stairs and saw the table and chairs under the tree. My dad sat at the table with Emma and had a tea party.
The adults had exchanged gifts the night before, on Christmas Eve. At that time, we were still exchanging names and buying one gift for another member of the family. My dad had drawn my name and gave me one of my favorite gifts ever--a set of Christmas dishes.
The beloved Swede put Emma into his backpack and took her out for a walk while I was working on Christmas dinner. While they were out, snow began to fall. Fluffy, white, magical Christmas snow.
I could not have scripted a more perfect Christmas. Then, during dinner, the phone rang. We received word that Grandma Kromer who had been declining for some years with Alzheimers had died. My mother-in-law and her girls gathered in the bathroom to cry and console one another, their sorrow and relief meeting in awkward intersection on this beautiful Christmas day. My dad fumbled to express his condolences.
We didn't know that a year later, we'd be grieving him. On December 11, 1992, Dad lost his battle with a brain tumor. When I called the social worker at the hospital where Dad had received treatment to tell her he was gone, her words were, "How sad. And at Christmas, too."
The irony of her words struck me. Yes, it was hard to grieve when the rest of the world was celebrating. But my grief for my father has only made Christmas more precious and more magical for me. His death calls to mind what C.S. Lewis in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe called "the deeper magic from before the dawn of time." We sing of that magic when we sing of the One who came to earth to taste our sadness, He whose glories knew no end.
When Christ was born, the eternal intersected with the temporal--the daily, fallen, broken reality of life on earth where beloved fathers die and our souls scream, "This is not how it is supposed to be." And so for me at Christmas, joy and grief intersect. And it's magical.
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