Christmas In A Tree

REFLECTIONS
December 12, 2010

After my father died, a friend gave me a small framed needlepoint which reads: “After Loss Love Remains. ”The quote was said to be original from a sermon I gave reflecting
on Pop. To be truthful, I don’t recall saying it, then or now. However, the saying is true for me. My Father is gone twenty five years, my Mother twenty and yet I feel their love still.

Furthermore, my love and appreciation for them continued rather than merely being aggrandized. I hear them in some of the phrases (I swore to never use), and still use regularly. I see them in the features of myself and those of my siblings. I remember conversations as I look at belongings that were once theirs and are now mine. Gifts of a sort, a loving presence still.

Though I miss my parents usually at those times wisdom and experience would be helpful, I do not miss the suffering I watched them go through. Even as I matured enough to attempt to tell them, I am not certain they knew fully the gifts they gave in model and personality. In a season of gifts it seems some gifts fit better in the heart than under a tree.

Dr. Joey K. McDonald
First United Methodist Church
4832 Tujunga Avenue, North Hollywood, CA 91601