Mike's Gift

It's just a small white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree, no name, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so. It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas. Oh, he didn't hate the true meaning of Christmas but the commercial aspects of it, the overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry or dusting powder for grandma, gifts given in desperation because you couldn't think of anything else. He hated that. Knowing he felt this way I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts and sweaters and ties and reach for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way.

Our son Kevin was 12 at the time and was on the wrestling team at school. Shortly before Christmas there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church, mostly black. These youngsters, dressed in uniforms consisting of ill-fitting boxer shorts, hole-punctured t-shirts and sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to hold them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without head gear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler's ears. It was a luxury that the rag-tag team could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them at every weight class. Mike sighed as he sat beside me, shook his head, "I just wish one of them could have won," he said. "They have a lot of potential but losing like this could take the heart right out of those kids." He loved kids, having coached little league for years. That's when the idea of the present came to me.

That afternoon I went to the local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling head gear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas I followed the tradition, on year sending a group of retarded youngsters to a hockey game, another sending a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground a week before Christmas. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It's always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our best moment.

The story doesn't end here. For you see, we lost Mike last year to dreaded cancer and when Christmas rolled around I was still so wrapped in grief I barely got the tree up. Christmas Eve found me placing the envelope on the tree nevertheless and that morning it was joined by three others. Each of our children unbeknownst to the others had placed an envelope on the tree for their Dad. The tradition had grown and some day will expand even further when our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation will watch as their fathers take down the envelope. Mike's spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us.

[Anonymous, quoted by Charles R. Swindoll]