The day before christmas in 1944, I was a private in a platoon on the drill field of Georgia’s Daniel Field. I suddenly spied my dad. He was standing there smiling, though how he got on the base I don’t know. It didn’t matter. He had come from Kentucky and I was ecstatic. Later in the day, with a one-day pass safe in my uniform, we went to the Augusta train station to meet Mother and JoJo, my younger brother. Despite the trials of train travel then, they had made it from New York. We lacked only my older brother Hamill, far away in the Pacific.

We walked down Broadway, which was a solid mass of khaki, mostly from a huge infantry installation nearby. The four of us had dinner and talked and talked. We talked about Hamill, while we worried for his safety. Mom and Dad sat comfortably together, Mom laughing until tears came to her eyes at Dad’s crazy sense of humor. It was hard to believe that they had been divorced for sixteen years.

But it was so. And Mom had made a bad second marriage, from which she never could get free. Recently I came across some letters from Dad to Mom that revealed his everlasting love for her. And when he died, Mom revealed her love for him to me.

Now, both of them are gone, and Hamill and JoJo as well. I shall never forget how, before we ate that succulent turkey and ham dinner, the four of us held hands. Then Dad said, “Thank You, Father. We are a family. Amen.”

Father, I know You know why it was my favorite Christmas.