So This is Christmas?!

Can you feel it....those little nudges that suggest something special is happening today. I definately do and I'm supposed to be the hard core cynical realist of the family.....yet  there it is and I can't deny it. It's Love...the love of my family, the unique love of super close friends and though they aren't here with me this morning, I'm thinking about them and I have a hunch: they've thought of me too.

It is the love of a son, though he is currently sitting in his future In-law's home in England, was thoughtful enough to contact his old man this morning via Skype. What a treat that was...here I am, a Baby Boomer who basically grew up w/radio and black/white TV in the Analog Age, now using what we always thought then as a tool of the far off future, A Video Phone straight out of "The Jetson's" to wish my boy A Merry Christmas half way round the world, how sweet is that? Very, very sweet....

And the love of a daughter, I can feel that too...all the way from Greenville SC. That little girl of mine nearly brought her crusty old dad to tears last night with one of the most beautiful things ever written or said to me. I am speechless because it's hard to know how to respond to something so incredibly beautiful. But it's wonderful and the feelings, Sweetie are mutual.

 To the love of my parents whose example of love I can sum up very simply: They were ALWAYS there for me, through thick and thin, heartache and pain (lots of that, unfortunately) and of course during the many good times as well. They have held me close to them all their lives and I've always know what it felt like to be cared for and loved, to feel safe.

And finally the love of those who have shared my fate of pain & desperation only to surrender and discover a much better way of life. A bunch of people who deal daily with a disease that quite simply wants to kill them....They are some of the most incredible, caring people I've ever known.

So those are my thoughts and feelings this Christmas morning, 2010. I feel so fortunate to have such special people in my life.