A little over eleven years ago, I lost my grandmother after she fought a battle with pancreatic cancer. It is the Christmas I don't remember. The Lost Christmas. She died just shortly before Christmas. I was 16, and I soon learned that life was much more fragile than I had ever imagined. I know that we had the funeral before Christmas. I know that we all gathered on Christmas Day. But I can't tell you anything about that day...I guess I have blocked it from my memory.
Every Christmas since then, I think about my Christmases before and after her death. It seems like it was a turning point for me. Some of that is because of the age I was, and some of it was because she was the only grandmother I had known, and she was an irreplaceable part of the holidays.
When I lost my grandmother, I realized that people can be taken away from you at any moment, very unexpectedly. It was a hard lesson, but a valuable one, because I learned that I must savor every moment I spend with the ones I love. I began to appreciate holidays for much, much more than presents or food. I began to realize that the memories that were being built might one day be the only thing I would have to hold.
Now that I have my own family, I realize even more how important those special times are. I pray that each and every one of you who are reading this will remember how precious the times when we can be around the ones we love, related to us or not, really are. I hope that you will cherish those times and commit them to your memory.
Christmas is really about love. It is about God's love in the form of his Son coming to this earth to die for us. It is about the love we show and share with others. I pray that this Christmas you will be surrounded by the ones you love and that you will remember the unconditional love of our Lord.
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