Christmas present

Christmases past float through my mind, many of them frantic as I juggled co-partnering several pastorates, directing all the music that makes church and radio broadcasts joyous, making sure three generations of Stones and Flynn's (my parents) were equally gifted on Christmas morning, hosting countless lonely people on Christmas afternoon, painfully aware that my own children were annoyed about sharing the day with a crowd. I think now that Doug, in Heaven, is saying, "Finally! I have my dad to myself.!" He used to quip, "Remember how much fun we had before those other kids were born?" ...but he didn't mean it. He loved his little brother Jeff and his sister, Dee Dee. Our first few decades together as family were wonderful! That's where my memory takes me often rather than to recent years.
As Doug grew up he became an enduring man like his dad, his hero. During his wrestling years he competed against other NCAA champions from California to Slippery Rock, Ohio. Now THAT sport nearly did me in as I watched my firstborn's eyes bulge out, his face turn beet red and every muscle in his body threaten to burst. ...then he would go in for the kill when his opponent's guard was down. I spent many a match pacing outside the gym, agonizing, while Ted sat on the front row of the bleachers completely calm and confident that his boy would win.
At 17, Ted, without a ripple of worry, sent Doug off on a begged-for motorcycle chopper excursion. ...alone. Doug never told us one detail about that trip, but I suspect he slept alongside tatooed thugs with pistols, and that may be the tamest part of his first and only venture with motorcycle gangs, which had been Ted's calculated reason for letting him go in the first place.
In Texas Doug moved on to ultralights which helped to compensate for living on flat ground. Back in California he graduated to the more dangerous sport of hanggliding over the Sierras. Next came paragliding, swishing over our mountain grasslands by day and by moonlight. Next he entered the world of piloting and he had found his final high danger love. He flew over mountains, ocean, chunks of the United States, back and forth from Tehachapi airport to his work in San Diego every work day for seven years, navigating through and around the L.A. airport corridor. While building mansions in and around San Diego, he paraglided over the ocean off the Torrey Pines bluffs. Over the years, he scaled every mountain that loomed in front of him and in fact, four weeks before he died with cancer, he climbed thousands of feet from our valley floor to his castle/home in the air. He skiied and snowboarded in the High Sierras with his family, water skiied and boarded over every lake within hundreds of miles.
There was another gift God gave this colorful man who was Doug Stone. He was a lover of beauty, and made beauty happen with every home he designed and built, including his own. His watercolor creations were outstanding. His art teacher was so regretful that nothing was said at his Memorial about his artistic giftedness. ...but then there was LOTS not said about Doug Stone at his Memorial. Many did not know him as his family and a few others did. Why am I re-hashing Doug's life on this earth the day before Christmas of 2011? ...because I want to. I need to. If you have read this far, I thank you for indulging me.
Did I fret about Doug? ...every day of his life. I should be so grateful that he is safe in the arms of Jesus and most of the time I am. ...but I miss him so. How could a man like that NOT be missed? He and his dad are celebrating Doug's first and Ted's second Christmas in Heaven with their Eternal Heavenly Father. I am comforted thinking about that.
Tomorrow, Christmas Day, I will be with Dee, Brent, Lexi and a mother and daughter who are alone. It will be lovely for I have been advanced from making Christmas wonderful for everyone else to enjoying it myself!
Jo