Christmas Gifts
One Christmas I will never forget came in 1990, when I flew back alone from St. Pete to the family in St. Louis -- my first sober Christmas.
My father had passed away the previous May, so I was not looking forward to this first holiday without him; he was always the hub of the wheel in our large family.
By 10:30 on Christmas Eve night, all the siblings were on their way home, my mother had gone tearfully to bed and there I sat, wondering what I was supposed to do now, having come all this way -- and it didn’t even feel like we’d had a Christmas.
As the clock on the wall slowly ticked off the minutes, I remembered hearing there was a midnight meeting on Christmas Eve at the Intergroup Office about 10 miles from the house. In quiet desperation, I bundled up and headed out into the 10-degree weather and drove the quiet, snowy streets to somewhere I’d never been, to be with people I didn’t know.
There were about a dozen of us “orphans” seated around a long table, with an unlit candle in front of each seat. The meeting leader lit his candle, turned out the overhead lights and quietly started the meeting. As each person told his or her story, they would light their candle from the one next to them and the darkness began to fade.
And we each had our stories, of course, or else we would not be there. One person, newly sober, was still estranged from everyone in her family. The next person was missing the man who had been his sponsor for the past 7 years, who had died the previous Tuesday. Next, a marine who was home from the first war in Iraq said that in order to get home, he had to cross several countries where he was not welcome as a U.S. marine but was welcome as a recovering alcoholic. And, then, of course, I told my own story, which now seemed tame by comparison. And by that time, the room was bathed in light.
As the meeting finished and we all walked out to the cold parking lot to continue on our ways, an older man who first welcomed me earlier came up and asked me if it felt like Christmas yet. “Yes,” I said to him and then realized I was telling the truth.
“Isn’t in marvelous?” he said, with a quiet smile. “In this fellowship, we don’t need to wait for Christmas to give each other gifts, we get to do it every day.” We laughed and shared a moment of understanding. “And the best part is, these gifts don’t need to be wrapped,” he said as headed to his car.
That was 25 years ago but I’ve never forgotten the feeling of being empty and then, somehow, being magically filled... of finding my heart open to receiving by simply sharing my truth. “Every day is a gift,” the old-timer said. “That’s why it’s called The Present.”
