Star-light

I sat perched between them on their bed — on top of pillows.  It was Saturday and I had waited all week for him to get home.  The rule was that I couldn’t wake my Dad until it was light outside.  So, I was sitting there…still as a rock (by my accounts) but curiosity started plaguing me. Every so gently and without really moving a muscle, I gently lifted his eyelid up.

“Brightness, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he asked definitively which did not daunt me even slightly.

“I am just checking to see what your eyeball looks like when you are asleep” I explained.

He responded without missing a moment, “You have a very serious problem because I am not asleep.”

I protested, “Don’t wake up yet, the light’s not there yet, Light”  I quickly corrected him — I had always been Brightness and he had always been Light.  — and so I often waited through the darkness, for the light.

My Father was not known for his long expansive patience, except when it came to me.  And, later he would tell me that those Saturday mornings with his child that he described as his ‘mid-life crisis’ could melt away the icebergs the corporate world had delivered through a week of traveling, dealing, negotiating, and trying for the win.

So…he sat up, pulled me with him and we headed downstairs to sit in his big black chair — with his Marlboro Reds not far away, a strong cup of coffee and my featured hot chocolate for the ritual of the Christmas Tree game.  He plugged in the tree with the large glowing bulbs and I didn’t mention that the tree was really crooked — it had caused a problem when it didn’t fit squarely into the stand.  When I cocked my head slightly, it looked straight, so I sat between his feet on the ottoman — and we took turns. 

We picked an ornament and gave clues until the secret selection was determined.  He loved to play games with me and I with him, but he never let me win — ever — said honest play built character and made me more ready for the world.  It at least made me hungry for the win and eager to know how he knew what I was thinking and which one I had picked before I even started.  Sometimes I still wonder.

This one particular morning, after I had discovered the look of an eyeball at rest, he was more quiet than usual …but one of the characteristics of our 54 year relationship was that we didn’t need to talk.  Sometimes, we would sit in total silence and it was there that I learned to listen to the still small voice within me that is the way God works with me to this day.  But, I could tell something was different, and so I said, “Should I guess your thinking?”

And in an unusual soft cadence he pointed to the star at the top of the tree and how it found it’s way to our tree in Leawood, Kansas. It was lots of Christmas’ ago that I first heard it, but it has stuck in my heart since and changed the way that I see the Star.

It was Advent in 1941 — he was at Creighton University and had just met my mother.  They both knew it was love and forever, even though the news-feed was full of the war in Europe, it felt far enough away to forget about while love bloomed. They were together in South Omaha with just enough for a single fountain drink with two straws until the radio blew a siren and they left the table to join everyone else as they listened in horror to the day that would change everything:  December 7, 1941 — Pearl Harbor and World War II in the South Pacific would be the response to the day.

He held her as they both lived the fear of what had happened that day, wondering if there would be a tomorrow. There wasn’t much to say, but before he walked her home and dropped her off with a single quick kiss before her father turned the light on the front porch, she handed him a gold star that she had cut out of foil and told him to let the stars show him the way.  He would serve in the Navy on an LST and back again and that foil star lived in his wallet for 66 years of marriage and a lifetime of both struggle and joy.

On the return home from the South Pacific, his last purchase was a small, clear star.  Not big.  Not showy.  But, it could have been made of diamonds for the value it held for her. Not shiny…but one that stood tall at the top of the tree and came with a single sentence, “the star showed me the way.” Funny, how we never really talked about how we got it, but always is forever…and always there would be the star to show the way.

And, that morning he said to me, “See that star at the top of the tree, Brightness, let the star show you the way.” And, that was that — we went to watch Secret Squirrel, eat Cheerios, and get on with the things that make fathers and daughters keep Saturdays sacred. The Star has always been leading me.

Look up to the heavens–and into your heart–and find the light that leads you to the manger.

Remember the days that have changed your life forever and the ones that you decide to change for yourself

Listen to the promise of the manger and the life of the shepherd and the prophecy of Isaiah and count on the star to show you the way

Sometimes, you are the one who gives the star, and sometimes you are the one who receives it

Wherever you are, there is a star waiting for you.