My Daughter's Christmas Gift.

We all remember with much fondness the many treasured gifts loving given to us by our children. On those many birthday’s and wonderful Christmas’ morning’s madness when we are roused out of our beds, eyes heavy with sleep from the long night of wrapping last minute gifts by shouts of excitement. We watch our children’s joy and endure the shouts of gladness as they scramble to find their treasured Christmas’s gifts. Our own faces exaggerate our surprise and happiness as they give us our Christmas’s packages they might have picked our and wrapped, with the help of someone when they were younger.

Of course we are constantly overjoyed to experience their own success of their lives and share tears with them when things go wrong. We try to encourage and be engaged with them as they learn life’s lessons, what ever those lessons might be for the both of us. There are a few gift’s that my children have given me that can’t not be procured by monetary means, some are priced beyond actual value.

And so it is with my daughter’s most recent gift to me and her step-mother. She has given us a way to negotiate the healing among the family; for me her ‘father’, her Mother, her Step-mother and hopefully her brothers in due time.

The other morning Kay and I accompanied a friend to the local Cancer Center for the first Chemo treatment, as they didn’t have family who lived close enough. As we were waiting in the open seating area to be seen by the doctor, my ex-wife arrived for her regular appointment and we said our hello’s. I thought that was quite a coincidence to see her. Between our friends doctor appointment and his treatment, my ex had finished her appointment and she stopped to chat. As she mentioned that my sister would be arriving soon for her regular appointment, she checked herself in and sat down with us. And so we introduced everyone to our friend and chatted about things, about time long ago, when my sister and I lived in Japan as kids. She went on to describe the earthquakes and typhoons we had to endure and some of the damages and discoveries with the aftermaths. Everyone was quite chatty until my ex had to leave to get back to her school job and my sister left for her appointment.

I believe that this encounter among the four of us only happened because of my daughter’s intervention. The fact that the encounter was so casual and delightful I give full credit to my daughter’s sincere efforts to bring the family back together. It has been because of her insistence to reconnect with me and bring a mature understanding that I had to transition; that I am and have always been the same throughout my life. That I have treated my wife and children with compassion and love; as both ‘John’ and Sarah. That I am a much happier person as Sarah and can hold my head high with pride. So, I thank you, my daughter, from the bottom of my heart for this most wonderful Christmas gift ever!!