It was a relief, really, when the Emergency Room nurse started my IV and told me that I would be admitted for severe dehydration. I had been sick for 24 hours, in ways you don't want me to describe, so my fiance and his parents had taken me to Pawating Hospital. It was December 23rd. We had driven to Michigan to announce our engagement to his family, and then I had planned to return home the next day to be with my parents in Ohio.
At 5:00 p.m. Christmas Eve I was discharged from the hospital, several hours after I was due to catch the last Greyhound bus to my hometown. When I was told not to travel for several days, my hopes of spending the holiday with my family were gone. I loved my fiance -- and still do -- and his family seemed very nice, but this was the first Christmas I wouldn't be home. I woke up Christmas morning in a strange house filled with unfamiliar people, and attempted to hide my disappointment. Reading a book at the far end of the couch, I tried to be pleasant but unobtrusive as they started opening their gifts.
Suddenly there was commotion in the kitchen, and my future father-in-law went in and retrieved a six-foot-long stocking full of gifts. When Rob's family realized I would be with them for the holiday, they did a late-day Christmas Eve shopping scramble to the few stores which still remained open. The stocking was for me.
Many of the gifts were "gag gifts" -- pun intended. I unwrapped boxes of Jello, a bucket and a roll of toilet tissue. There were also kitchen utensils, a heart-shaped ornament and a small bottle of champagne. (This was before we had announced our engagement, but I think they knew it was coming. They're a pretty smart group.) None of the gifts was particularly expensive, and some were downright silly. I was still pretty weak, but it felt good to laugh.
What mattered much more than the gifts was what they represented. I was accepted. I was valued. It was clear then, as it amazingly still is today, that I have been adopted into the clan. Throughout the years, when I have at times been less than lovable, they have chosen to love me. They still do.
And looking back after twenty-eight years, I can't think of many gifts I treasure more.
--Susan Rodebush © 2010
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