Christmas in February

Our grandson, Chase, 23, had given us a restaurant gift certificate for Christmas, and we finally got around to using it for a special meal on Valentine’s Day. Howard had it safely tucked in his wallet and had almost forgotten about it, and Valentine’s Day seemed a perfect time to use it when we were out of town the other day.

For Christmas, I had given grandson Kyle, an airplane enthusiast, a boxed set of airplanes to construct of heavy, poster board-like paper. When he opened them and I saw you had to cut them out, I was wondering if he would ever use them after all. But when we were at their house a few days ago, I saw a couple of them he had made. “Look how good these fly, Mimi,” he exclaimed, sailing them into the 18 foot high expanse of their den.

Every spare minute seemed to be consumed with laboriously cutting them out with scissors, gluing and flying them. Their dining room table had become an airplane factory. 10-year-old Bradley was knowledgeably tossing around such words as ailerons, rudders, etc. and Kyle, who had gone up in a glider for his 14th birthday, was full of terms like lift, thermals, and so on. They had made seven or eight by the time we left. I was glad they finally (re) discovered them, even a couple of months after Christmas.

We had stayed at their home to attend the services of my husband’s brother’s funeral. It was a bright spot in what could have been a somber occasion. Although the funeral was sad, it was bittersweet, a mixture of tears and laughter, as good times and funny memories were recalled, but especially when we dwelt on the happy ending that Delmar is at home in Heaven. It was as if the Lord had taken him in a moment, for a few minutes before, he had listened as his wife read scriptures to him as he rested after enjoying a home-cooked supper.

We couldn’t help but reflect on their mother’s homegoing, on Christmas day, her favorite holiday, several years ago. Howard always said she loved a big Christmas, and she got one that year. And now his brother, too, was celebrating a “Christmas” in February.