Most Precious Gift

About ten days before Christmas in 1971, my sixteen-month-old daughter became suddenly, seriously ill. Her doctor thought she might have pneumonia, gave her a shot, and told me to call him back early that afternoon if she didn't improve. I looked down at her limp, gray, body and said, "I want her in the hospital right now."

A little before noon, a nurse, alarmed at her unresponsiveness, called the doctor to come to the hospital right away. A spinal tap revealed meningitis, and she was immediately hooked up to all kinds of tubes, placed under an oxygen tent, and wheeled away to isolation. The doctor said, "I think we caught it early enough that there won't be any permanent damage, if she lives."

Stunned, I donned my mask and robe and took my place beside her bed, where I stayed. That first night I kept asking God to save her life, praying that God would save her life. Around midnight, peace came over me. Somehow, I knew she would be okay.

For days she lay motionless under that oxygen tent, hooked up to life-saving chemicals. Finally, on Christmas Eve, nurses came into the room, unhooked her from all the tubes, and removed the oxygen.

I picked her up for the first time since the ordeal had begun. She felt like a newborn, unable to control her head. Nurses reassured me, "These little ones bounce back quickly." They were right. That evening, she was running down the hospital hallway.

On Christmas Eve my precious daughter and I went to sleep in a regular hospital room. She was in a baby bed, and I was in a regular hospital bed by her side. I slept so soundly that I didn't hear the Christmas elf that crept into the room to leave a red flannel stocking with candies and a toy plastic lion peeking over the top.

Every year at Christmas time, I give thanks for a vigilant nurse, a capable doctor, the most precious gift of a healthy child and the elf that hung the stocking on my daughter's bed.

You write it:  What is your most precious Christmas gift?