RED'S GAS STATION


I will forever wonder how old I was.

We lived in an upstairs apartment where there was a little cubby-hole between a bannister, with a long and scary drop into the dark stair-well below, and a little window that looked out over our roof and across the street to red's gas station.

I didn't know about time. I didn't know about minutes, hours, or clocks; and I didn't know the months of the year or about calendars. I only knew that if I waited a long time and asked mom, "when will it be here ?" often enough, she would eventually say in a happy tone, "it won't be long now!" Then I would begin to watch out my little window.

I watched through the rain and the sleet, and eventually I watched through the glistening patterns that jack frost painted on my little window. I watched out through the snow that sparkled under the light-post and across the street to red's gas station which was bathed in a floodlit swirl of white. I watched many times each day, for “countless days”, but it did not come.

Then one tired and doubt-filled night it happened, just like before! I could hardly believe my eyes.

Out through the little frosted window and out through the night and the glistening shower of falling snow-----they were there! Bathed in a blinding glow of refracted light, they stood waiting quietly at red's gas station.

In the pure white radiance, they were a special and beautiful green, and they were as tall as they could be, and there were "millions" of them--everywhere. The Christmas trees were back at Red’s Gas Station.

It took forever-----but Christmas had come again!


P.S. Children everywhere still innocently wait and hope for the joys of similar and different miracles in their lives.

If humankind would only bless these children with the warmth of it's love and devotion, this miracle of miracles would reflect and echo for all time.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! (2009)

God Bless,

Dr. Tom