A Tender Christmas Memory

Jackina Stark, who is enjoying retirement after teaching English for many years at Ozark Christian College, shares memories of her late father in this, another in a series of Christmas recollections during the week leading up to the celebration of our Savior’s birth.

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By Jackina Stark

I don’t remember ever having anything but a joy-filled Christmas when I was a child, a mother, or a grandmother. They run together into moments of loving and being loved. But there was one Christmas I could never have imagined and will never forget.

Dad moved into an assisted living apartment when he was 94 only because he thought it would help my mom. She left this earth a few months after the move, but my siblings and I were so glad when Dad agreed to stay there, though he was still bowling two or three days a week, making runs to the store, and attending church, all in a five-mile radius, thank goodness.

He had a two-bedroom apartment and loved for my husband and I to come spend a few days every three weeks or so. The third Christmas after Mom died, he was getting more and more tired but insisted on sending out their annual Christmas cards to each child as well as each grandchild’s family and writing checks for everyone. We sat at his little two-person table, and I helped him with the envelopes that year.

The following December I noticed quite a difference in him, and he, though he was still bowling, was aware of it too. I sat beside him on his loveseat while he read the paper. When he finished, we chatted a bit, and at one point, he said, “I’m failing, honey.” I can’t remember how I responded, but he had turned 98 a few months earlier, and I must have said something like, “I think you’re doing great, Dad.”

He insisted we get the Christmas cards sent, but he sat on the little loveseat, and I addressed the envelopes, wrote out the checks, and brought him a lap desk and the checks for him to sign. When he finished, he was relieved and pleased.

We came to see him again a few days before Christmas because we were going to California that year to spend Christmas Day with our older daughter’s family. He liked the present we brought, we gave him hugs, and we left him with a bit of a heavy heart like always. But we knew he’d have a lovely Christmas Day with my sister, who lived a few blocks away.

On Christmas evening, I found a quiet place to call Dad. He sounded so good. I wished him a Merry Christmas and asked how his day had been.

“I had a great day!” he said. “Had a wonderful dinner at your sister’s, opened some nice gifts, talked to your brother on the phone—just a great day.” I went back downstairs after our chat, and thought, Blessed, we’re all so blessed. Emmanuel, I always think, Emmanuel.

On the morning of Dec. 27th, my cell phone awakened me, and my sister, tears choking her voice, told me Dad had just passed away. He had got up, taken his daily morning shower, and dressed to go down to breakfast. But before he went, he was looking for something in the walk-in closet next to his front door. When the nurse he especially liked came in to check on him, he found Dad in distress, sitting in a chair he must have unfolded in the closet, and helped him into his rocker. He told Dad he was calling an ambulance, but Dad said not to worry about him. Nevertheless, the nurse ran down the hallway to call. When he returned a few minutes later, Dad had slipped away.

Mercy, Dad loved life, yet he was ready for the “mortal” to clothe itself with “immortality.” We “see through a glass darkly,” but just like that, Dad could see “face-to-face.”

Tony and I hurried home with our daughter, and a few days later we held Dad’s celebration service in a packed church. And because it was still the Christmas season, we ended his funeral with Michael W. Smith’s and Carrie Underwood’s “All Is Well.” I found myself able to smile, listening to those words: “All is well, all is well. Lift up your voice and sing. Born this night, Emmanuel. Sing Alleluia.”

And I do. I lift up my voice and sing Alleluia.

Jackina Stark taught English at Ozark Christian College for 28 years before she and her husband of 50-plus years retired near one of her daughters in Branson, Missouri, with a field of cows and a lake out back. She’s written various articles, two non-fiction books, and two novels. These days she mainly reads and thinks and enjoys her family and God’s nature.