I just heard a lovely story at a memorial service. During the Communal Eulogy, a grandson of the woman who had died came forward to share his favorite "grandmother" story. Thirty years ago when he was a boy, this grandmother used to read "The Night Before Christmas" to him every Christmas Eve. She read it from a very old and tattered book, and he experienced both magic and grace every year from the woman, that book, and her reading of the story. Even after he grew up, he would sometimes call this grandmother on Christmas Eve, and she would repeat the childhood ritual by reading the story over the phone. Again, the magic flowed through the telephone wires, and the grace enveloped him.

That’s an amazing power, the power to bestow that sort of magic. He came to depend on it, every Christmas Eve.

When he became a father, he even took his son to visit grandmother on the night before Christmas, so that she could work the old magic for the boy. The last time he saw her, she said to him that it was time, now, that he needed to take over the important task of reading the story to his son. It was almost as though this were a kind of relay race, and she was telling him it was his turn to take the story-telling and magic-weaving baton. He wasn’t sure he could do that. He had always received the magic, never given it.

After his grandmother died, he wondered about that raggedy old book. He looked for it, but it was nowhere to be found. It had been published in 1915, she’d probably had it all her life, and it had never been in great shape. Perhaps the magic would die with his grandmother – wouldn’t that be sad?

But no. The reason he couldn’t find the book was that she had sent it out to have it rebound, so it might last for another century. It was her parting gift to him – the book, and it’s implicit message that now indeed the role of Magician and Grace-dispenser was his.

All those years that she read "The Night Before Christmas" to him, as a boy and as a man, were quite a special grandmotherly gift. But they didn’t hold a candle to her final present, the gift of her empowering blessing, passing the baton – and the magical book – on to him. He just beamed as he told the story, his eyes welled up, and he spoke a grateful "Thank you, Grandma!" into the air. The story was too good to leave there in the air. Now you have it too. Pass it on.

Davidson