KatieAnn’s Best Christmas

by Al deAprix, Jr.
c. 2002

KatieAnn was a month shy of her seventh birthday when Pop was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. It
had already spread to his brain; his specialist told him that the radiation treatment that they were going to give him
would beat the disease, but the family was informed otherwise: Pop had only a few months – maybe half a year –
before the end would come. The radiation treatments would slow the malignancy’s spread, helping to preserve his
sight and mental functions. Keeping Pop’s spirits buoyed was to be the family’s responsibility, and keeping them up
would give him a better quality of life. For that reason, we cooperated with the doctor’s deception of hope.
What made the tragedy oppressive for our family was the realization that Pop’s life could have been spared
had he sought competent medical treatment just a few months earlier than he did. He had been suffering from
breathing difficulties for eight or nine months prior to his cancer diagnosis. Because he was on a fixed pension, he
had tried to save a little money by going to the nearby Veterans’ Administration hospital to obtain the free service
that they offered former servicemen. Pop had fought in World War II and had spent eighteen months in a string of
Nazi P.O.W. camps across Germany after being captured while out on a scouting mission in central Italy, not too far
from Monte Casino.
The treatment Pop received at the V.A. was worth as little as he paid for it and it typified the national
scandal in veterans’ care that began making news several years later when it became alarmingly apparent that
veterans were not receiving the help their sacrifices had merited. The V.A. doctor had asked Pop what he believed
was wrong. My father explained that he was having trouble breathing, and he thought that might be due to an
allergy. Without any examination, the doctor prescribed allergy medication and sent Pop on his way. Had that
doctor given my father even a cursory examination, he could have caught the cancer before it spread to Pop’s brain
and hollowed any realistic hope for a recovery. Over the next six months my father’s condition worsened, forcing
him to return to the V.A. There, a second doctor examined him, and when she did, she asked what his earlier x-rays
had shown. Since the first doctor at the V.A. had not taken any x-rays, nothing had been discovered. As that second
doctor was much more professional than the first had been, she quickly ordered x-rays, and they revealed how the
malignancy had already collapsed one lung.
Instead of accepting the V.A.’s offer to operate immediately, my father went home to pursue treatment
through one of our local hospitals that had a pretty decent oncology department. Their examination discovered that
the cancer had metastasized, or spread, lodging in seven separate sites in his brain plus several places in his
endocrine system. My three youngest children were just toddlers or infants at that time, so there was not much I
could or needed to explain to them. My oldest, KatieAnn, had, however, become considerably attached to her
grandfather.
Pop had little patience with children when I was growing up, but he seemed to take a genuine interest in his
grandchildren. In return, KatieAnn assigned him a special place in her heart. She was always telling me how much
her grandfather loved her. Due to her age, it was difficult to explain to her that her grandfather was not going to
recover from his illness. My wife Kathy and I chose to tell her because I had always resented my mother for not
letting me know the truth about my grandfather’s terminal cancer when I was only a couple of years older than what
my daughter was when my father was dying.
“Katie, you know that sometimes people get very sick, don’t you?” I began.
“You mean like Grampa?”
“That’s right, like Grampa. You do understand that he is very, very ill?”
“But he’s going to get better, isn’t he Daddy?”
“No, KatieAnn, he’s not. He has something that they call cancer and they didn’t find it in time, so he’s not
going to get better.”
KatieAnn’s eyes started to fill up with tears as she asked, “Is Grampa going to die Daddy?”
“Yes, he’s going to die. I wish it wasn’t so, but he’s not going to make it.”
“Is he going to die soon?”
“Well…maybe not for a little while yet. You can still go visit him.”
“Isn’t there anything you can do, Daddy?”
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“No, there isn’t. I really wish that I could do something, but even the best doctors can’t do anything now.
You’re getting to be a big girl now, and I want you to understand that there will be times when Grampa doesn’t feel
very well. He may get very tired and need to rest. Eventually, he’ll have to go to the hospital. He might even get
angry occasionally. It won’t be because of you – you just have to be understanding and patient with him. He’s
going to need you to love him a lot.”
“I will, Daddy, I promise.”
“We also can’t say anything to Grampa about how sick he’s getting because that would make him very sad,
okay?”
“Okay, I won’t say anything.”
I knew that in her own seven-year old way she understood. It might have been at a very elementary level,
yet she knew that her grandfather would be leaving her for always and that it would be happening pretty soon.
Within about three weeks of being diagnosed with the cancer, Pop went blind in his left eye and he started
losing his vision in his right. The radiation treatments restored much of the sight that he initially lost, giving him the
illusion of hope that he was going to overcome his illness. He kept telling everyone who visited him how the
doctors had discovered the disease in time and how he was now getting better. His improvement was only
temporary and limited, though, as the malignancy continued to inexorably seek out new locations in which to imbed
itself, relentlessly eroding away his strength and life.
I went up to the family farm every week that summer and autumn to mow the lawn or work on
rehabilitating the old farmhouse next door to the home Pop built fifteen years earlier. If I wasn’t going to be too
long, I’d let KatieAnn go up with me so that she could spend time with her grandfather. Sometimes they would play
cards, other times they might talk or watch television. For her, even the simplest of activities carried great
emotional importance. Their time together also seemed to help keep up my father’s spirits.
As summer’s green blended into autumn’s gold and orange, Pop steadily lost ground physically. By
Thanksgiving he was visibly weaker, managing to get around his yard and home only with considerable difficulty.
By that point he didn’t like riding anywhere in the car, having started to suffer from motion sickness. The strain of
caring for him tired my mother greatly. That led me to suggest that Kathy and I prepare Thanksgiving dinner for the
two of them at our house and then bring it up to them at the farm.
They way things turned out, Thanksgiving was the last full meal that Pop ever ate. Kathy and I fixed my
parents turkey with all of the traditional side dishes including stuffing with sweet Italian sausage and raisins, mashed
potatoes, candied yams, homemade cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie topped with homemade whipped cream. My
father couldn’t eat a lot of anything, but he did manage to enjoy a little of everything. My friend Tim – who had
come over to have dinner with us – volunteered to help me take my parents’ dinner up to them and set it up.
KatieAnn asked to come along with us to see her grandfather, so the three of us set off for the farm at two that
afternoon to deliver the holiday feast.
KatieAnn kept her grandfather entertained while Tim and I warmed the food and set the table. Pop had
been watching the Macy’s parade on the family room television while my daughter had been viewing it at home.
That gave them something to talk about. I overheard snippets of their conversation as KatieAnn excitedly told her
grandfather all about the floats, balloons, and, of course, Santa Claus. Before I called my parents to dinner,
KatieAnn had gone on to describe what she hoped to get for Christmas that year. A few days later Pop slipped me
twenty dollars to help make at least one of her wishes come true; he didn’t have much to spare on his pension, yet he
wanted to do something to make his granddaughter happy that Christmas.
Needing to get back to my house to have our dinner, we left my parents as they were sitting down to theirs.
“We had a real nice time talking about the parade,” KatieAnn exclaimed as we pulled out of the driveway
for our ten-minute trip home. “He was really happy you made him his dinner. Grampa told me that he didn’t think
that Gramma was going to be able to cook for them.”
“No, she couldn’t, Katie. It’s just too much work for her to take care of Grampa and do much of anything
else. It takes a lot of effort to fix a big Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Daddy, what do you think that Grampa would like for Christmas?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we should think about it a little. Do you want to do something special for him?”
KatieAnn fell silent at my question, but I suspected from her ensuing contemplativeness that she was
starting to think about the idea.
As the days following Thanksgiving passed in an irresistible progression, so, too, did Pop’s ability to get
around on his own. Ultimately bedridden, his spirit seemed to ebb in tandem with his strength. We never discussed
the inevitable, but Pop appeared to realize that his time was drawing nearer. He would say things like how sorry he
was that he couldn’t help me with rehabbing the old family farmhouse. I would reply that he shouldn’t worry about
 3

minor matters. I urged him to save his strength for getting better because I could handle the work that needed to be
done. It was an extremely difficult time for all of us.
KatieAnn still went to the farm with me, though her visits were short because her grandfather had ever less
energy left for conversation. She kept up a courageous exterior for a seven-year old as she watched him rapidly
deteriorate. With the doctor’s help, my mother had Pop admitted to our local hospital’s intensive care unit eight
days before Christmas. He now needed round-the-clock skilled nursing care that was beyond the family’s ability to
provide him.
Our first visit to the hospital to see her grandfather disturbed KatieAnn. Pop knew that we were there since
he could still let us know that he understood things by making slight gestures, but they had i-v’s in his arm for
hydration and for administering painkillers, and they had put an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth to help him
with his breathing. Wires from his chest and arm kept track of his pulse and blood pressure. Pop was a pasty, pale
color and it was obvious that he was wasting away physically from the disease’s onslaught. My daughter could talk
to her grandfather, but he could do little more than nod or gently pat her hand in return.
Tears fell from KatieAnn’s eyes onto Pop’s bed as she took her grandfather’s hand into hers and told him
that she loved him. He squeezed her hand lightly in return.
“You’re going to get better Grampa,” she declared, more with hope than conviction, “and we’re going to
have Christmas together.”
Pop shook his head yes just a little. I could tell that he understood what she was saying, and I think it
meant a lot to him. His little granddaughter wanted to be with him on Christmas. He didn’t have much to look
forward to now, but this would be one last milestone in his life.
It was already twilight when we left the hospital after that first visit and a late autumn breeze was chilled
with a reminder that winter would soon be upon us.
“Where’s Grampa’s room?” KatieAnn asked as we walked down the sidewalk toward the road where I had
parked my car.
“Well, let’s see. He’s on the fifth floor of that wing right over there, so count up five windows from the
ground along the side there.”
“Okay, Daddy.” And she dutifully counted up the five floors like I told her.
“Now count over to the fourth window.”
She did so with great deliberation, calling out the number of each window to ensure that she found the right
one. “Is this one his room?”
“Yes it is.”
“Can he see us?”
“No, he can’t get out of bed. I think that he knows we’re here, he just can’t get up and look out his
window.”
“Can I wave goodbye?”
“Sure, Katie, go ahead.”
She waved and almost imperceptibly whispered the promise: “I’ll be back, Grampa.”
On the way home in the car KatieAnn let me in on what she had been thinking about. She had decided that
she should do something very special for her grandfather.
“Grampa needs someone to be with him on Christmas. Could I spend Christmas with him? Please.”
“Oh, I think that you could visit him then. That would be a…well, a wonderful thing to do for him, Katie.”
“Could we have a real Christmas for him? Could we give him presents and get a tree for him?”
“Let’s see how Grampa does first, okay? You know, we might be able to take the small artificial tree from
our landing over for him.”
“Couldn’t we get a real one?”
“No, I think they’d tell us we couldn’t have a real one because there are some very sick people in the rooms
near Grampa’s. But you could decorate the small tree really pretty and put it where Grampa could look at it. I think
that he’d enjoy that a lot!”
“Can we?”
“Sure. We can do that.”
“Can you and I go over real early Christmas morning and do it, Daddy? I want to be there for Grampa
when he wakes up. I want Christmas to be real special for him.”
I assured Katie that we would work things out with the hospital so that she could be with her grandfather on
Christmas morning, keeping to myself the concern that he might not make it that far. Katie also wanted to visit my
father every day until Christmas; that, however, would not be possible because the work schedule for my two jobs
most days required me to stop in to see him on the way home from one or on the way out to the other if I wanted to
 4

be with him. My mother and my uncle were both visiting Pop daily, and he received occasional visits from some of
his friends, so most days he actually wound up with enough company to tire him out completely. I was free one
evening four days before Christmas, and I decided that it would be a good time to bring my wife and Katie along.
Kathy had to arrange for a babysitter for our younger children because they were not allowed in the critical care unit
- even Katie was considerably under the twelve year minimum age requirement for children to visit patients, but she
was so well-behaved that the staff didn’t say anything about her being there.
Walking up to the hospital after we parked the car, Katie counted out the floors and windows to show her
mother where Pop’s room was located.
“See, Mommy, you just count up five like this: one, two, three, four, five,” Katie explained, pointing to
each floor with care. “Then you count over four windows, and that’s where Grampa is.” She was very proud that
she knew which one was her grandfather’s room.
Kathy looked at me with an inquiring look, as if asking how Katie knew that.
“She wanted to know where he was so she could wave to him. I showed her how to count out the windows.
She’s got it right, so I guess she’s got a good memory.”
“I’ll say!”
“How long can we stay, Daddy?” KatieAnn asked as we reached the lobby door.
“Until Grampa gets too tired. We can’t let him get exhausted because he’s very sick. He can have visitors
until he starts to fall asleep, then we have to go to let him get the rest he needs.”
We went up to his room and on the way there we found my mother at the nurses’ station. She made her
displeasure about Katie being there readily apparent; in her view, children shouldn’t be around dying relatives.
Because my mother had thought that it would be too traumatic for me at that time, I couldn’t even attend my
grandmother’s burial service when I was in eighth grade - I had to sit off in a side room, with the door closed, at the
funeral parlor while the service was being conducted. My mother gave me one of her well-practiced exasperated
looks when we arrived, but I quickly responded that KatieAnn loved her grandfather and needed to be with him.
“Comforting Pop will make the inevitable easier for her when it does come,” I added in a low-volume, yet
firm voice that my father couldn’t overhear from his room. Changing the subject as we walked over to my father’s
room, I asked if anyone else was coming over.
“Lou should be here soon,” my mother replied as we entered the room.
At hearing that, Pop became quite excited. He and his older brother had been extremely close all their
lives. They had worked on each other’s houses over the years, visited each other weekly, and had even been
partners in a modest concrete block company some years earlier until the local building boom had died down.
We talked to my father for about fifteen minutes while KatieAnn stood quietly by his side. My uncle came
in and greeted us, and then he told Pop, “You’re looking pretty good, brother. When are you getting out of here?”
Uncle Lou was always the optimist in his conversations.
My father raised his arm slowly and pointed to the doorway. I think that he tried to say “soon,” but his
weakened condition and the oxygen mask that he was wearing made it impossible to make out what he said.
My uncle sat down in one of the chairs and we quickly slipped into a family conversation, as often happens
when the sick relative being visited cannot converse much or at all. At one time I thought that talking in front of an
ailing person that way was extremely impolite, but I later came to realize, after several hospital stays of my own
following surgeries, that an ill person finds it much easier to let his or her attention drift casually along with a
conversation than to try to take an active part in it.
After about three-quarters of an hour we could tell that my father needed his rest. It was ever more evident
that he didn’t have much time left and I wanted to spend a little while sitting with him - pretty much as a farewell -
so I told Kathy that I would take her and Katie home, then return to the hospital. My mother offered to give the two
of them a ride home, saving me the extra roundtrip.
As she got ready to leave for home, KatieAnn told her grandfather, “Now don’t forget, Grampa, we’re
going to have Christmas together. And it’s going to be very wonderful. We’re even going to have a Christmas tree
and I’m going to decorate it for you.”
Pop closed his eyes and patted Katie’s hand. She left his side and went with my wife and mother. Uncle
Lou lingered for a moment or two, then he, too, headed for home after promising to return the next morning. With
his head bowed as he walked away, there was no missing how visibly he was grieving over his brother’s condition.
My uncle would be the last of the five brothers and sisters to pass away, at age ninety-five, eleven years later.
While I stayed with my father, I had no doubts that he was nearing the end of his struggle with the
rampaging cancer. Although he had fallen asleep, his breathing could only be described as erratic: a deep breath or
two was usually followed by a few shallow ones that were randomly interspersed with fairly long pauses, testifying
to his weakening condition. His pulse was also irregular according to his heart monitor. He was laboring to stay
 5

alive. I sat quietly with him for several hours, remembering. Eventually, I left, walking silently out into the cold of
an unforgiving December night. Left unexpressed was my hope that he would still be with us Christmas morning
for my daughter to have her time with him.
Christmas Eve arrived, and it was a hectic time for my wife and me. There were the usual several last-
minute items to purchase and I needed to take KatieAnn up to the florist’s to select a bouquet to give to her
grandfather. She chose one with three red roses and plenty of greenery to emphasize Christmas, and then we took it
home to store it in the refrigerator to keep it fresh for the coming morning’s visit.
We ate a seafood dinner, like we did most years, and hurried to put our luminaries out before heading to
church for the Christmas Eve candlelight service. Katie helped me by filling each luminary’s white paper bag about
one-quarter of the way with sand, which weighted it down against any wind that might come up. I lit each of the tea
candles and pushed one down into the sand in each bag before placing the luminaries along our sidewalk as part of
our neighborhood’s annual display. With all of the outside lights along our street turned off for the evening, the
neighborhood’s display was both spiritual and impressive; residents from all over the village would drive by during
the evening to appreciate it. KatieAnn told me as we finished that she wished that her grandfather could be with us
to see the display.
Later, at church, Katie said a little prayer for him: “Please let Grampa be here tomorrow so that we can
have Christmas together,” she began. “Grampa wants me to come see him and I hope that you can help him feel
better. Amen.”
After we returned home my daughter still expressed concern about her grandfather. My wife and I both
assured her that he was still with us. We were able to get her and her siblings off to bed by 9:30, giving Kathy and I
time to put out our gifts and ready the living room for Santa’s visit later that evening. Pretty well exhausted from
the busy day and facing an early morning, we headed off to bed shortly after eleven, being certain to not forget to set
the alarm for an early rising.
Christmas morning came long before sunrise, and we got up at 5:30 as planned. KatieAnn was excited
about her special trip - all she could talk about as her mother got her ready was seeing Grampa for Christmas. My
wife dressed Katie in a holiday theme which included a red Christmas pattern jumper, green tights, and a green
turtleneck top. Two thin, red ribbons held her twin, side ponytails in place. We went downstairs quietly so as to not
wake up her younger brothers and sister. We could see that Santa had made his visit during the night, leaving his
gifts for the family alongside ours around the tree. But that didn’t interest my daughter then; she just wanted to get
to the hospital as quickly as possible to be with her grandfather.
I put on my heavy leather jacket and went out to brush a dusting of snow off my old blue Chevy.. Though
we hadn’t received much of a snowfall, what we did get added to the Christmas spirit of the still-dark morning.
Carrying the flowers we had purchased the day before for my father, Kathy accompanied KatieAnn out to me as
soon as I was ready to leave. My daughter’s face was radiant as she brought her three gifts to the car.
During our drive to the hospital a little apprehension began to creep into KatieAnn’s thoughts. “Will
Grampa be all right when we get there?” she asked me.
“I think so, Katie. He’s very sick now, but the hospital promised to call us immediately if anything went
wrong with him.”
“He’s going to like his Christmas, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes. This is going to be a very special Christmas for him. He’s really excited that you’re coming to
see him.”
“Shouldn’t we have gotten a gift for him?”
“I don’t think so. Remember, he can’t open anything anymore, but he’s going to be very happy to see you
open the gift he bought for you. He wanted you to have something from him and he’ll be thrilled that you brought it
over to open it with him. That’ll mean a lot to Grampa.”
KatieAnn smiled and settled into thoughts about Christmas with her grandfather as I drove across the
bridge into the city for our visit with him. For once it was easy to find a place to park my car near the hospital; the
streets were deserted that early on the holiday morning. Katie carried her three presents up to the hospital after we
had parked the car while I removed the artificial tree and its box of ornaments from the trunk and carried them and
the flowers along with us. My daughter became very quiet as we approached the hospital’s main entrance, but
KatieAnn had a look to her that told anyone who might see her that hers was already a very special Christmas.
After taking the elevator to the fifth floor, we walked through the corridors to the intensive care unit,
keeping silent to avoid disturbing any of the patients along our way. When we arrived at Pop’s room, we put our
packages down and took off our coats, laying them over an unused chair in the room, I placed the tree on his room’s
wide and deep window sill and plugged in its lights, which were a combination of red, green, blue, and white mini
bulbs. The little tree brightened the room as Katie set about her responsibility of carefully unpacking the dozen or
 6

so ornaments and hanging them on its diminutive branches. I had to steady her as she stood on a chair to hang the
higher ones and place an angel on the top. When we were done, we had a tiny holiday masterpiece.
“It’s a beautiful tree, isn’t it?” Katie whispered to me.
“It’s a wonderful tree. You did a great job decorating it. Do you want to wake Grampa up so that he can
see it?”
“Is it time now?”
“Yes, but remember to be gentle.”
KatieAnn stepped over to her grandfather’s bed and softly tapped him on his arm as she exclaimed, “Merry
Christmas, Grampa! It’s time to get up.”
Pop was slow to waken, as his pain medication left him drowsy, but he gradually became fully roused and
he struggled to say hello to us.
“I came just like I promised, Grampa. We’re going to have Christmas together.”
Pop attempted to show his appreciation. All he could do was nod his head a bit. I went over and closed the
door so that our family festivities wouldn’t disturb any of the unit’s other patients, then I sat down in one of the
chairs while KatieAnn eagerly launched into her carefully-planned celebration with her grandfather.
She opened two of her gifts from my wife and me first. One was a top that KatieAnn had wanted while the
other was a Holiday Barbie to add to her collection of the famous fashion doll that every little girl had to possess.
She told her grandfather all about the gifts. Next came the most important gift of all.
“This is my special present, Grampa. It’s the one you had Mommy and Daddy get for me.”
I could see my father shaking his head softly with agreement. I’m certain to this day that he knew that was
the gift that he had slipped me twenty dollars to buy for her.
Attacking the red ribbons and shiny green wrapping paper as deftly as a seven-year old could, Katie opened
the package with excited animation. It was exactly what she had wanted most that Christmas.
“Oh, Grampa, it’s beautiful!” she exclaimed, her eyes alight with her youthful joy. “I wanted Brave Heart
Lion so much. Oh, thank-you Grampa, thank-you.”
She put her head down along his arm and did her best to hug her grandfather. Pop nodded again, doing
what he could do to convey his pleasure with the outcome. Seeing Katie happy gave him what was undoubtedly his
last measure of joy in life.
Then Katie kissed her grandfather’s cheek and thanked him again. With considerable effort he raised his
hand and pointed to me.
“I know, Pop. You wanted her to have the present that she hoped for the most, and she really wanted to
spend Christmas with you. We brought your gift for her along so that she could open it here with you, and you
could see how much she enjoyed it.”
He just dipped his head a little to say thank-you.
“We brought you some flowers, too, Grampa,” Katie interjected. “Aren’t they pretty?” she asked as she
turned to pick them up to show him.
Pop agreed, nodding his head, again, very slightly. It was clearly a struggle for him to stay focused and be
with his granddaughter.
Then KatieAnn turned her attention to our little tree. “Do you like your Christmas tree, Grampa? I
decorated it for you. Isn’t it beautiful?”
Pop expressed his appreciation more weakly, but he was still with us. He patted his bed alongside his legs
and I told Katie that I thought he wanted her to sit next to him. So she climbed up on his bed and perched herself
next to her grandfather, telling him all about our family’s preparations for Christmas. The conversation was one-
sided, but Katie was happy to tell him all about wrapping presents, our luminaries, the candlelight service at church
the night before, and the dinner that we were going to cook later that morning. After about twenty minutes, Pop
couldn’t fight the pain medication and the effects of his illness anymore and he quietly fell asleep, breathing very
shallowly. When I saw that he had drifted off, I told Katie that it was time to go.
“Is Grampa all right, Daddy?”
“Yes, he’s just sleeping now. His medicine makes him very tired. We have to let him rest while we go
home and cook dinner.”
“Can we come back?”
“If he’s okay, we could come back later this afternoon, but he needs to rest now. You gave him a lot of
excitement this morning, young lady.”
“Did Grampa like his Christmas?”
“He loved it. You did a fantastic job. He had a wonderful Christmas.”
“Can we leave the tree and flowers for him?”
 7

“Sure, we’ll let Grampa keep them. They’ll help make his room cheery for him when he wakes up again.
I’ll tell his nurse that we want to leave the tree and I’ll make sure that they don’t throw it out on us. And people
always leave flowers here,” I added, “so I don’t think that anyone will bother them.”
Katie eventually accepted my assurances that it would be alright to leave the tree and flowers; her concerns
about them were probably more a reflection of her desire to stay with her grandfather than serious worry about
someone taking them. In retrospect, her reluctance to leave her grandfather may well have been prescient.
Although I sympathized with her desire to remain at the hospital, Pop had exhausted all of the energy that he still
possessed to stay awake for KatieAnn as long as he had, and Christmas with the family was still ahead of us, so we
had to let my father rest while we headed home to be with the rest of the family.
We put on our coats and gathered up Katie’s gifts. As we left, Katie called out, “I hope you had a happy
Christmas, Grampa. We’ll come back to see you later.”
I carefully patted my father’s hand and quietly said, “Thanks for being here, Pop.” I don’t know if he heard
me. I just wanted him to know that I appreciated the effort he made to be with my daughter that morning. It would
mean a great deal to Katie over the many Christmases that lay ahead of her.
We stopped at the nurses’ station to tell them about the tree before we left. Walking out of the hospital,
Katie looked up at her grandfather’s window and waved goodbye to him, but this time she didn’t say anything. We
drove home, woke up the other kids, and had our traditionally chaotic gift unwrapping. Then my wife and I began
cooking our meal as Katie and our next two oldest children embarked on fantasy adventures with their new toys.
Yet, no matter where she went or what she did, Katie kept her Brave Heart Lion by her side for many days
thereafter.
We sat down to dinner and the usual family conversation just after one. At 1:30 my mother called. Pop
had died a few minutes earlier, with my uncle by his bedside. I came back into our dining room, but the family
already knew.
“Grampa’s gone, isn’t he Daddy?” Katie asked.
“Yes, Gramma said he died just a few minutes ago.”
Tears flowed down KatieAnn’s cheeks as she stood up and came around the dining table for a consoling
hug from me. The inevitable had come to pass, and all that anyone could do now was accept Pop’s death with the
dignity that he would have requested, with each of us doing our best to remember more enjoyable times with him.
Looking up at me as I hugged her, my daughter sought that most important of answers to her: “He had a very good
Christmas, didn’t he Daddy?”
“The very best, Katie. He stayed with us just long enough to spend Christmas morning with you. You
were very special to him and he wanted to be with you today, so he held on as long as he possibly could. You gave
him the most wonderful Christmas he could have had.”
“I’m going to miss Grampa.”
“I know. We all will. You’re sad about losing him, but he wanted to have his last Christmas with you.
That’s something you should cherish for the rest of your life.”
My daughter promised that she would remember, and with that we finished our dinner somberly.
KatieAnn didn’t get her most gifts of any Christmas that year. She didn’t have her happiest Christmas,
either. But she did have her best Christmas ever because that was the year she first experienced the true spirit of the
holiday; it is what you give of yourself, and not what you get from others, that makes a Christmas memorable.