My first real Christmas

I wrote the following column for a Catholic newspaper where I served as editor. It was penned just after Christmas 2015, nine months after my father passed away.

I am 58 years old and this year marked my first “real” Christmas. My older brother and I were raised in a loving Italian Catholic home. We received all the sacraments and our faith was integral to our upbringing. I was married in the Church and together with my husband of 35 years, we have two wonderful sons. In our home, Christmas has always been celebrated in grand style, with Christmas Eve Mass a highlight of the experience. Following Mass there would be a feast, lots of laughing, storytelling and love. I’ve had 57 wonderful Christmases.

This year was different.

Earlier in the year, after a long illness, my father passed away. If it’s possible to imagine, his death was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. It changed me forever. This is what happened…

During what would be the last of many trips to the ER with my father, who had symptoms of heart failure, the doctor explained to us that this was the end. My father had just hours left. He was moved to a quiet room in the hospital and a morphine drip was started.

A parade of family and friends came to pay their last respects. This went on for more than 24 hours while my father lay still, peacefully drifting away, thanks to the palliative care he received. He was surrounded by love.

Late that night, my brother took our 84-year-old mother home to rest. I stayed with my father in the quiet of the dimly-lit hospital room. I wanted to be awake when he passed but I gave in to quick catnaps throughout the night. Then it began.

I awoke at 4:30 a.m. with a start. Somehow I knew the time was now. The urgency was reminiscent of giving birth – a mother knows when the moment is upon her. I grabbed my Rosary and wrapped it in my father’s hand, with my hands folded around his. I prayed the Rosary as I’ve never prayed before. The words themselves became unexpectedly real.

“Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death…” Oh my, I remember thinking, this is the hour of my father’s death. Over the years I’ve said what must be thousands of Rosaries and said those very words over and over again, never realizing their significance.

Then, at the revelation that my father was on the threshold of eternal life, about to walk from this life to the next, “Oh my God,” I heard myself say out loud. “THIS is what it’s all about.” All the times I had heard references to eternal life, that Jesus died for us so that we would have eternal life, it was never real to me. In that moment of epiphany I said, “Thank you God for giving us your son!” And then through tearful eyes that had just been opened to the mystery I said, again through tearful eyes, “Thank you Jesus for dying for us!” It was as if my eyes and ears had been opened.

As I was saying the last decade of the Rosary, I called upon my deceased grandparents to come greet their son. I whispered to my father that he should go now–that it was okay. And then, a few minutes before 5 a.m., and just as I finished the Hail Holy Queen prayer, my father took his last breath.

As beautiful as this seemingly divine experience was, things got even better.

I had, over the last few months, tried to prepare myself for this moment. I was sure that it would be for me as it was for those I had witnessed during the many hospital stays with my father. I would hear the call for a doctor, I’d see hospital staff rush to a room down the hall, and finally tearful family members would spill out into the hallway, grieving the loss of their loved one. That is what I expected when my father’s time came.

As I kissed my father goodbye and left the hospital room, I was overcome. Not with sadness, but with joy. I wasn’t crying. I was happy to the point of euphoria. This wasn’t what I expected at all. And then I remembered the last time I had the same feeling. It was just after giving birth to my sons. I realized that in some way I had helped to deliver my father into eternal life. In doing so, I was gifted with a glimpse of the joy Heaven holds for us.

That Christmas I set up our nativity set with extra care, and Luke 2:11 had new meaning for me: “Today in the town of David a savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”

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