The Christmas Blessing Read online

  The

  Christmas

  Blessing

  DONNA VANLIERE

  ST. MARTIN’S PRESS

  NEW YORK

  Table of Contents

  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PREFACE December 24, Present Day

  ONE Late October 2000

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  For Gracie,

  who proves the most priceless gifts come in small packages

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As always, my husband, Troy, was the first to read this manuscript and offer honest, sometimes painful, feedback. Thank you, Troy, for constant encouragement. Your enthusiasm is contagious.

  We loved our daughter, Gracie, in our hearts long before they put her in my arms when she was ten months old. Thank you, Gracie, for your joy, happiness, imagination, laughter, smile, “Elmo–Pooh Bear–blankie,” dances, “big hug,” and kisses.

  I made many eight-and-a-half-hour trips to northeast Ohio so my parents could baby-sit while I worked. It was a long way to drive for child care, but I always knew Gracie was loved and cared for. Mother and Pop, thank you for all the good food and the many days you gave us.

  My agent, Jennifer Gates, always believes in my work and makes the journey of writing enjoyable. Thank you, Jennifer, for being able to see past rough outlines or fragmented chapters to catch my vision, however dim it may be at the time, and make it stronger. Thanks also to Esmond Harmsworth for his time and feedback, and to everyone at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth.

  Jennifer Enderlin, my editor, encouraged me to write a sequel to The Christmas Shoes and provided invaluable guidance. I appreciate your work and the belief you have in this book, Jennifer. Many thanks also to John Karle and to the St. Martin’s sales staff for making calls and pounding the pavement on behalf of this book.

  Beth Grossbard is petite in stature but big on vision and belief! Thanks, Beth, and thank you, Craig Anderson, for making dreams and ideas reality.

  Great thanks to Byron Williamson, Rob Birkhead, Derek Bell, and the staff of Integrity Publishers for all your work and effort in the CBA marketplace.

  Three physicians helped me get this manuscript into shape. I couldn’t have done it without their help. If there are medical mistakes in the book, the fault is mine, not theirs.

  We met Dr. Skip Hagan in China while he and Melissa were adopting Janie. Although he was busy with three children and Emergency Department duties, Skip always had time for my medical questions. Thank you, Skip, but most of all, thanks for the friendship with you and Melissa.

  Jackie Russell put me in contact with Dr. Ann Kavanaugh-McHugh with Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital Division of Pediatric Cardiology. Thanks, Ann, for generously sharing your knowledge with me and helping with everything from a heart patient’s diagnosis to treatment. Thank you, Jackie!

  My cousin, Paula Ross, introduced me to Dr. Anne Wilkerson, who provided rich insight into her years of medical school and rotations. She was a tremendous help in making each medical scenario in the book realistic and believable. Your help was invaluable, Anne. Thank you, Paula!

  Sandy Ivey guided us through our first adoption and is gently leading us again. Thank you, Sandy, for helping us bring our babies home! We couldn’t do it without you.

  I wrote much of this book at the Medina County District Library in Ohio. The staff was always kind, helpful, and, of course, quiet. Thank you all.

  I’m blessed to know people, many of them teachers, who have consistently aimed for excellence in their work. They have inspired, motivated, or challenged me throughout my life. Thank you to Tim Cook, Wes and Rebecca Baker, Paul Dixon, Dorothy Elrick, David Foster, Jim Leightenheimer, Diane Merchant, Jim Phipps, Rick Powers, David Robey, and Jon Skillman.

  Thanks to Eve Annunziato, Jenny Baumgartner, Jeff Brock, Eddie and Terri Carswell, Debbie Cook, Rebecca Dorris, Dave and Judy Luitweiler, Will Marling, Barbara McGee, Cheryl Reese, Tammy Rich, Peggy Rixson, Peggy Starr, Laurie Whaley, and Vince and Sharon Wilcox for your encouraging spirits, kindness, and for taking the time to be friends.

  And, again, thank you to Bailey, who never left my side when I worked and was the first to remind me when it was time to lighten up and take a walk.

  We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle.

  —Oswald Chambers

  PREFACE

  December 24, Present Day

  It’s Christmas Eve, and the lake in front of me is frozen hard. Snow surrounds the edge, crunching beneath my feet. The sun is beginning to sink, and the trees, heavy with snow, cast long shadows over the paved path that runs along the shore. Several runners make their way around the perimeter, careful not to bump into the occasional walker on the inside of the path. I stand for a few moments in that familiar spot, beneath the giant oak tree, looking out over the smooth surface. As I’d driven through the icy streets on my way to the park, past familiar shops and sights, I’d noticed few changes in the three years since I’d been gone. I take a deep breath and exhale, leaving faint clouds in the winter air. I have work to do. I open the tailgate of my truck and grab the legs of the heavy wooden bench that I’d loaded earlier.

  When I was a boy, my father would wake me early on Saturday mornings, and we’d drive to a lake, much larger than this one, on the outskirts of my hometown, and push our tiny rowboat into the water. We’d always start before dawn. At the lake, we’d row out to our favorite spot and prepare our rods for a morning of fishing. Together we’d sit in silence and wait for the slightest tug on our lines. Often, we’d speak in whispers. My father was convinced that even the smallest noise spooked the fish, but when my father did speak, he’d say, “Be patient, Nathan. One will come,” or “Be still, Nathan. Be still.”

  At the end of the day, we’d row back with our catch—we threw back more than we ever kept—and then, as we approached the shore, my father would sometimes tell me about his hopes and dreams and ask me about mine. “Even God’s smallest plan for us is bigger than any dream we could ever hope for,” my father said one morning, pulling the boat onto dry land.

  I don’t know why I have always remembered that moment; maybe I recall it because there was a time when I was a boy that I’d prayed for a miracle that never came, one that would have kept our family intact and saved my mother’s life. I was eight years old when she died of cancer during the first morning hours of Christmas Day. Earlier in the evening I had run to Wilson’s Department Store and bought her a pair of shiny beaded shoes. Looking back, I know they were gaudy and awful, but in my child’s mind I thought she’d look beautiful as she walked into Heaven wearing them. I didn’t know my mother would die that night, and as I climbed into bed and pulled the blankets high around my neck, I prayed again for a miracle.

  As I helped my father pull our boat onto shore years later, I wondered how he could believe that God’s plan for us was greater than anything we could have ever imagined if God wouldn’t send a miracle when we needed it most?

  A year earlier, I went with my mother one winter morning to visit my grandparents, who lived high on a hillside. We drove up the winding road that led to their home, and because the trees were naked, as I looked over the bluff at the top, I could see into the valley below. It looked so different from above, not as immense as I’d thought. We got out of the car, and my mother took my hand on that cold, windy day and looked down i
nto the valley with me. “I liked it better looking up,” I said to her. “Everything’s too little from here.” She knelt beside me and drew me close to her side.

  “Time in the valley will teach you to be a man, Nathan. It’s where your character will form.” I looked down the slope and back to my mother. I didn’t understand how roaming around in the valley below would help me to become a man. She laughed when she saw my puzzled face and stood up, taking my hand again. “You can only see small things when you’re on top of a mountain. Do you know what I mean, Little Man?” I shook my head. No, I didn’t.

  She knelt in front of me and held my face in her hands. “One day you will, I promise. But I hope you don’t go straight to the top of the mountain, Nathan. I hope you go through the valley first so that you’ll learn how to love and feel and understand. And when life wounds you, I hope it’s because you loved people, not because you mistreated them.” I didn’t understand anything my mother was saying. She smiled and kissed me. “Always remember that regardless of what happens, Nathan, in the end there will be joy. I promise.” As odd as it sounded, I’ve come to realize that it was her heart’s cry for my life, spoken not necessarily to me, but for me.

  People talk about a defining moment in life. I’ve come to realize that there is no one defining moment, but instead a series of events and circumstances that define who we are. They change us little by little, leading us to something bigger or unexpected or maybe to a closed door, and that is when we experience a grand moment of realization that drives us closer to our destiny. The times with my father on the lake and with my mother overlooking the valley are two such moments.

  Today, I know that each of us is destined for something, a purpose that often seems muddy, or vague at best. We want nothing more than to know what our purpose is, to know that we haven’t just been plopped down to fumble our way through to the end, but that there’s a reason for our being here. We may not discover that purpose in the way that we’d want, as time in the valley will be longer and darker than we imagined, but if we are patient or still long enough, we will catch it in fleeting glimpses. We will see tiny sparks of revelation that push us closer and closer to our destiny. There will be pain; sometimes more than we bargained for, but as my mother promised so many years ago, in the end there will be joy.

  ONE

  Late October 2000

  All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

  —Henry David Thoreau

  I gunned the engine, pulled the truck out of my parking space, and flew over the speed bumps on my way out of the apartment complex. A young mother grabbed her toddler and gave me a dirty look. I thumped the face of my watch, and the second hand seemed to groan before deciding to move. Too late now, I’ll never make it, I thought, glancing at the clock in my dashboard.

  I couldn’t believe it; I was never late. I’d noticed that my watch was having problems a couple days earlier and had been relying on an extra clock in my bathroom to make sure I was showered and out the door on time. As I was shaving I must have accidentally pulled out the cord just enough to stop the clock from running. The tires squealed as I pulled out onto the main road, and the gardener working at the entrance to the complex gave me my second nasty look of the morning, even shaking his head for effect.

  If I made all the stoplights through town, I could get to the hospital in fifteen minutes. Turning into the hospital lot, I glanced at the clock—fourteen minutes—a new personal record. There was no time to circle for a spot, so I parked at the far end of the lot and ran for the main entrance. Maybe he hasn’t started yet. Who was I kidding? Dr. Goetz never failed to start on time. I ran faster between the rows of cars.

  As part of my third-year medical rotations, the university had placed me under the tutelage of Dr. Crawford Goetz—the best cardiologist in the hospital. Cardiology wasn’t part of a normal rotation block, but the university felt that a rotation in cardiology would only enhance a student’s studies. So, I was stuck for the next four weeks with Dr. Goetz. He was a Harvard and Vanderbilt man, the chief of cardiology, father of four, grandfather of two, and a thorn in my flesh. He specialized in pediatric cardiology, but since the hospital had only a small number of child patients a year, as department head, Dr. Goetz would also oversee the treatment of adult patients.

  In each of our rotations, a medical student was part of a team that consisted of an attending physician, three to four students, and an upper-level resident. Peter Vashti was the upper-level resident on Dr. Goetz’s team. My clipboard with the day’s rounds was hanging at the nurses’ station, the last to be picked up. The other students and Peter were already following Dr. Goetz from room to room. I checked the room number for the first patient to be seen and ran to catch up, sneaking in behind William Radcliff, an old friend and fellow student who, to my good fortune, stood six-five. Dr. Goetz was sitting on the patient’s bed, a forty-seven-year-old man recovering from open-heart surgery.

  “She’s working like a thirty-year-old’s heart,” Dr. Goetz said.

  “Does that translate to the rest of his body?” the man’s wife asked, cracking a wad of gum. Dr. Goetz laughed. He had a carefree, easy way with his patients and their families; too bad that didn’t translate to his students.

  “So everything feels normal?” Dr. Goetz asked, resting his hand on the patient’s shoulder.

  “He’s cranky again,” the wife said, her gum exploding like a firecracker.

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but for him it’s normal,” his wife continued.

  The patient looked sheepish. Poor guy, no wonder he had heart surgery. She was relentless.

  “All right, Jason,” Dr. Goetz said, smiling. “You’re ready to go home.” The man shook Dr. Goetz’s hand and I could see his eyes fill with tears; he started to speak, then stopped. He didn’t want to get emotional in front of a handful of medical students. He pumped Dr. Goetz’s hand again, nodded, and looked down at the sheet resting on his lap. Dr. Goetz squeezed his shoulder and turned to leave, nodding for us to follow.

  Filing back into the hallway, we could hear Jason’s wife get an early start on what could be heart attack number two. “What do you mean you’re not going to wear the piece? Just because your heart’s working again doesn’t mean your hair’s going to grow back. Put this on. Put this on, or I’m not walking out these doors with you. I mean it. I will not walk out these doors.” For the sake of his heart, I hoped his head would shine like the new dawn as he left the hospital.

  “Who’s our next patient,” Dr. Goetz asked, scribbling something onto Jason’s chart. “Andrews?”

  I looked down at the chart in my hands. “The patient in room 2201.”

  “Mr. Andrews,” he said, as if giving a speech to a room of five hundred. “Just as you were not given a number at birth, but a name, you will find that your patients came into the world in the exact same manner. Learn who they are, not where they’re located.”

  I could feel sweat break out on my upper lip. I never intended to seem demeaning toward the patient. “I didn’t mean it that . . .” I began, but it was too late. Dr. Goetz had already learned the name of the patient and was leading the students through the halls.

  “And Mr. Andrews, as a reminder, your rotation begins at six A.M. Not six eighteen.” I felt my chest tighten. I should have known that Dr. Goetz would pick up on my tardiness.

  During a break in rounds, I retreated to the lounge and sank into the sofa. I leaned my head against the wall and rubbed my temples. If I’d known there was going to be someone like Dr. Goetz in my future, I never would have signed up for medical school in the first place. I glanced at my watch and noticed it had stopped running again. I tapped the face, but the second hand wouldn’t budge. I took the watch off and flipped it over to thump the battery casing. I ran my finger over the inscription: With all the love in the world, Mom.

  My mother died about a year after she
stood with me on the hill overlooking the valley. Maybe she knew she’d never see me grow up; perhaps she was preparing me for the long valley I would go through without her, or maybe preparing her family and herself for death was the final step of faith she would take.

  I remember my father coming into my room during the early morning hours of that Christmas. He said that my mother had stepped into Heaven. He let my sister Rachel sleep; she was much too young to understand what was happening anyway. I ran to the living room, where my mother lay still on the hospital bed; my grandmother was holding her hand, weeping. I watched my mother for the longest time, praying she’d move again, that she’d reach for me and say, You need to get back into bed, Little Man, but she couldn’t reach for me, and I knew it. She was thirty-four years old.

  Wilson’s Department Store was about to close on that Christmas Eve as I ran from one department to the next looking for the perfect gift until the shoes caught my eye on a sales rack. I ran them to the front register and pulled a crumpled wad of bills and loose change out of my jeans pocket. When the clerk told me I didn’t have enough money, I was heartbroken. I just had to buy those shoes for my mother. I turned to a man behind me, and, before I knew what was happening, he paid for the shoes, and I ran out the door for home. When I helped my mother unwrap the shoes, she held them to her chest and made me feel as if I’d just handed her Heaven itself. We buried her in them. I started leaving shoes on her tombstone again when I was sixteen. The owner of Wilson’s somehow found a similar pair every year and ordered them for me.

  During the last weeks of her life, my mother wrote a series of letters to my sister Rachel and me. In one addressed to me she wrote,

  Dear Nathan,

  I have had many joys in my life but none that have compared to you and Rachel. I always want you to know that I fell more in love with you every day. Please don’t ever dread Christmas, Nathan, but remember to look for the miracles instead. It may be hard to see them at times but they will always be there because Christmas is the season for miracles.