I’m one of those that starts listening to Christmas tunes around Thanksgiving and counts the days until it is socially acceptable to deck the halls. I love opening the big green tubs filled with memories of Christmas past, and finding a place in my home for them to reside for a few short weeks. And I love the warm glow of the lights. Everywhere.

I don’t even mind shopping during the holidays, contrary to most other times of the year. Not even for groceries. It’s likely I will see people I don’t see very often when the stores are crowded. I am delighted to exchange good cheer with a stranger, when their day is full and their job is hard, and it would be easier for both of us to do otherwise.

I will probably leave the mantle of lights and snowmen over the kitchen sink. One last vestige which I will enjoy, and my family will tolerate, until all hope for snow is lost. And when the last of this holiday season is retired, it will be the thoughts that linger on.

Like the squeal of my grandson, when he walked into the house and saw the “Lights!” for the first time, and the second, and the third. Or the way he danced with glee when the otherwise rambunctious dog snuffled him on Christmas Eve. Although this was his third Christmas, it was the first for him to unwrap a gift with understanding, intent, and enjoyment. There is a quiet beauty in the eyes of a child as they experience something for the first time, without fear or expectation.

My granddaughter lay on the comforter underneath the tree, in the house that her great-grandmother and grandfather built. This I will think of when I close my eyes to sleep at the end of a long day. Time goes by so quickly.

I will remember something as simple as my daughter turning off the television on Christmas Eve. Surely not a big thing and not that anyone was watching, but it was a sign that we should not be distracted from the more important things at hand, like each other. Things that were important to her as well.

Miles separated my son and I, but the comfort of his voice was as close as the phone on a blue Christmas night. I am reminded how important it is for me to have time apart to appreciate the time together.

This will be the Christmas when I remembered how much enjoyment there is in gifting something made with my hands, and hoping it will last for lifetimes.

I will remember John’s children, now young adults, gathered on Christmas day in the kitchen with their faces as close to the windows as humanly possible, counting the numbers and kinds of critters that had come to the feeders that John filled the day before.

And John, sitting on the periphery of kids and electronic media, strumming a green ukelele with a smile on his face, from deep in a soul where youth springs eternal.

It’s not the things I hold in my hand, but the ones that are in my heart.

About ten years later, John and I made our first visit to the local butcher shop, and who do you suppose was standing behind the counter? Although I didn’t make the connection, he did, and came out from behind the counter to say hello and meet John. We quickly became regular customers and got to know the other good folks that work there, but his face is always the one I look for.

One morning, in the first part of 2009, my newspaper had an article about a crash involving two persons. The car had left the road and run into a tree. The driver had a blood alcohol level of .24 and was transported to the county jail after treatment for minor injuries at the local hospital. As it seems to go in accidents like this one, our young friend had to be extracted from the car, was airlifted to a Chicago hospital in critical condition with bleeding in his brain, fractures and other injuries. A month later the paper said he was still in intensive care and unable to speak.

The next time we went to the butcher shop, there was a picture of him taped up on the wall near the cash register with words written in black marker, asking customers to think of him in their prayers. Over the months, we heard updates with slow but gradual signs of improvement, more than often accompanied by “but it was a really bad accident”. At one point last fall, he had been moved to a rehabilitation center down south and the updates became fewer and far between.

Early this summer, the butcher shop opened a produce section in the rear of the building. John and I pulled the car around to the back and parked. Out of the corner of my eye I saw two men standing at the edge of the parking lot, in butcher’s garb. We made our way into the store and closed the door behind us. As I took my hand off of the door knob, it opened right back up and in walked our friend. He had seen us in the parking lot. I got a big hug and a smile.

As we talked, it became painfully apparent that he was having some troubles putting his thoughts together. His left eye was a little smaller and slightly drawn upward, but the sparkle was still the same. I told him it was so good to see him and that we thought about him often. I asked him how long he had been back. He looked at me, and then turned to his friend and asked how long he had been back. I found out I hadn’t seen him because he was working in the shop now a few hours at a time, instead of behind the counter. I told him it looked like he was doing well, and he took off his baseball cap, showed me the bare patch on top of his misshapen head, and said “Yeah and the guy that did this is in prison”. His friend reminded him that their break was over, took him by the arm, and they disappeared into the shop.

And we wept. We wept for our young friend, and we wept for someone at the butcher shop who has a heart of gold. Someone who found a place for him, when I have to think it would have been easier to close the door.

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I have started this post several times, but the words wouldn’t come, so I just quit writing. And after all, why would you want to read yet another sad story about the leavins of a drunk driver? It happens all the time. There was a similar accident that happened this spring in a nearby town. The driver and one of his friends were banged up, and the other two were killed. All of them were just kids.

Then last week the driver and his parents released a video “to help other teens avoid what he, his parents and the community have experienced”. I watched it. It seemed sincere to me. But a mother of one of the fatalities objected to it. To her it was “inconsiderate”. This was not someone she wanted her younger daughters “to learn a lesson from”. Lives changed forever. And a mother lode of pain.

Yesterday we made our weekly trek to the butcher shop, and once again I rolled this story out in my mind. As I spit out the last few words, I can finally say that I’m angry. Oh sure, I’m angry at the driver. That’s expected. But I’m really angry at our young friend for making the decision to get in the car with a driver that was obviously drunk.

In a perfect world, there would be no drunk drivers. And if there were, they would be alone in the car.

Here’s to my dad.

He was in the 34th Infantry, “Red Bull Division” during the end of the second world war and the liberation of the concentration camps. I know this only because of the pictures I found after he died. They were kept in an old shirt box along with other items that led me to verify what I had already believed; that what happened to him during his length of service was life changing.

They said he was not the same when he came home. How could he be?

He never talked about the war, but it was with him all the time. And so it goes with the multitudes that have walked in his footsteps.

We’ll hoist the flag again today, in honor of my dad, and those that share his story. He would have expected that.

And we’ll say another prayer for peace. He would have expected that, as well.