Digital sketch by Alex Simmons

   This season I misplaced my Christmas spirit.

     It was a truly odd thing because I’ve had it for years.

     I had it when I was a child and my mom had to take me to the local precinct to get me one of the used toys donation for Christmas.

     It was there when at 18 my mom’s health placed her in a nursing home and I was suddenly on my own Christmas eve.

     Through many years, losses, health scares, and financial struggles, it was there.

     So it surprised me this year when I couldn’t find it.  And couldn’t for the life of me understand why I’d misplaced it. 

     Sure there’s great fear, confusion, anger, and sadness around me. But this is not the first time. Nor will it be the last.

     And though I am not a religious man, I am a spiritual one, and thus I feel the spirit of this season comes not from without, but from within.

    So I thought, where best to seek what was lost?

    And it came to me … I’d forgotten to remember the things that had always been with me since childhood. The truths my family shared with me, beside their love.

     The two things that had always sustained me in the past, and that I had shared with others as they shared with me … a vision towards the future, and the hope and drive and belief that it could be made manifest.

     Yes, I’d failed many times. And in these hours of morose doubt, I remember those failures in minute detail.

     But then I recall the successes. 

     The memories usually start with one small achievement, then another. I see the smiles, the glowing lights in the eyes children I’ve helped, as they suddenly discover the value of their imagination.

      I remember the good and grand people I’ve met, a number far greater than their opposites.

     I remember and find comfort in the fact that my own children, my extraordinary blessings 3, are good caring, intelligent people. 

      I remember the kindness I’ve seen. The love I’ve known. The peace I’ve shared.

     And in those simple and priceless thoughts I find, and have found again, my true spirit for the holidays.

     Be it Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hannukah, or Kwanzaa,, the true message for me is to appreciate, cherish, and share what we have as much as we can. 

     If we can  do that then for even a moment the world is made a better place. 

— Alex Simmons, 2017 —–

Digital sketch by Alex Simmons