I’m a sentimental, nostalgic person to begin with, but the holiday season takes it to a whole new level. I spend a lot of “think-time” in the past. I think about friends and experiences together and I treasure memories of family times, football games and Christmas mornings.

As I write this, it’s just after 10:00 a.m. central time on Thanksgiving Day. So in New Jersey it’s just after 11:00 a.m., which means that 33 years ago at this time on Thanksgiving Day, my last high school football game had just kicked off against Toms River North. I forget the final score, but we won to end the season 7-1-1, which unfortunately was not good enough to make the playoffs.

Speaking of the playoffs, we’d anticipated Fayetteville (where we live now) would still be in the playoffs this week, so we would not be able to go anywhere for Thanksgiving. For the past two seasons, my son has had practice on Thanksgiving morning. Fayetteville lost in the first round though, so it’ll be just four of us this year.

For many years when our kids were younger, we traveled to Louisiana to be with my wife’s family. I loved checking the kids out of school early and then piling everyone into the van for the eight hour trip to Hammond on that Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Many of those years also included, Ivy, our beagle. She died earlier this year though, so this will be the first Thanksgiving without her in 14 years.

We did break tradition in 1999 to travel to Colorado to help a friend administrate a conference he was leading at Keystone Resort. It was our one and only ski vacation as a family. Some of us picked up skiing a little quicker than others. I won’t say who struggled the whole time.

Because I’m so sentimental, I have a difficult time throwing things away. I hold onto old t-shirts and ticket stubs. I keep newspapers that covered important events like elections and 9-11. And in 2000, I started a tradition of cutting off a section of the trunk of our Christmas tree to save.

I not only save t-shirts and newspapers–I also save emails. This morning, I was going through some old ones. I don’t mean emails from a few months ago; I’m talking about emails from eight or nine years ago. I found some my daughter had written during her freshman year in college and forwarded them to her. I found another one where I’d recorded some of the questions my son asked me on August 9, 2004–just a few weeks before he turned nine. Here are a few of them:

“How can God always be there if nobody born Him?”

“Is there a lot of blood when an elephant is born?”

“Can anything be perfectly smooth?”

“Would you rather have a rifle or a shotgun? Why?”

“What time do I have to go to bed?”

I also found a document I’d written 24 days after my dad passed away in 2005. I wanted to capture some of the moments in his final days and also honor the man who shaped me more than anyone else on earth. This picture is from the last Christmas we had together before he died a few months later.

So where am I going with all this? Well, no deep thoughts today. Just enjoy this holiday season with those you love. Try to look past the annoyances and unmet expectations. Remember that we’re all broken, all in need of grace, all deserving of a second chance. Treasure every moment you have with your family. Take lots of pictures. And build some memories…they’ll become the glue that keeps you bonded together in the future.

This post has already been long enough, but if you’re interested in what I wrote about my dad back in April of 2005, here it is…

In the spring of 2005, a man who changed the world passed away. Through the course of his life, he influenced countless lives – touching both the great and the small in the eyes of the world. Political and business leaders attended his memorial service, as did those who knew him well and those who hardly knew him. I’m one who knew him well. He was my dad, Robert Stutts.

He was diagnosed with acute leukemia in September 2004. Six months later, on March 23, 2005 – he passed quietly into eternity. That was 24 days ago. It feels more like 24 months ago or 24 minutes ago. I dreamed about him last night. I told him he was wonderful. He told me I had a tender heart. So did he. He used to say, “I love you Greggy”, when we were getting off the phone. No one else calls me “Greggy”.

Yes, my dad changed the world. He changed my world. What makes that most remarkable to me is that he had no one to pattern his life after. He had no model. He didn’t have parenting books to reference. Of course, my dad wouldn’t have read them anyway. He liked to read the newspaper, but that was about it. Somehow though, my dad altered the course of history with his life.

My dad once described his own father as “a mean man”. Anyone who knew my dad, knew that he was anything but mean. He was the kind of person who loved to help people. Need a job? He’d help you get one. Need a ride to a cancer hospital in Manhattan? He’d take you. His son wants to go to an Ivy League university? No problem. He said if I got in, he’d pay for it – and he did.

My dad made it to almost every football game I ever played – from 4^th grade through college. His own father never saw him play a single down. His father never saw his son return an interception 38 yards for a touchdown in 1954 in his first college game. His father never watched as his son played most of his senior year of high school with Novocain shot into his thigh to deaden the pain. Yet I don’t think it ever even occurred to my dad to not be there for my games – even when it meant driving hundreds of miles to Ithaca, New York or West Point.

My dad was born and raised in Mifflintown – a little town nestled in the mountains of central Pennsylvania. He graduated from high school in 1950 and joined the Navy just a few days after the Korean War began. While in the Navy, he served on three different aircraft carriers – the Roosevelt, the Coral Sea, and the Midway. He was a radio operator. He once did top-secret work in the Black Sea – intercepting radio traffic of Soviet aircraft and submarines.

After leaving the Navy, he went to college. His father never really liked him, but going to college sealed it. My dad was the first in his family to go to college and leave home. That was interpreted as “being too good” for them. Telling his father that he was a Republican didn’t help much either. His father was a life-long Democrat.

When my dad learned that his father was in the hospital and was dying, he drove from New York to Pennsylvania to see him. When he walked into the hospital room, his father looked at him and said, “What are you doing here?” Given that type of relationship with his own father, how did this man turn it all around?

Six weeks ago, it became clear that God was not going to answer our prayers for my dad’s healing. I made plans to visit him and help care for him. I arrived in New Jersey on March 17, six days before he died. Fortunately, he still had enough energy in the first couple days I was there to get his haircut, go grocery shopping, and have lunch together at the Corner Post Diner. I don’t remember much of what we talked about – just being with my dad was enough. He ordered scrapple for lunch that day. (For those unfamiliar with scrapple, suffice it to say it’s a Pennsylvania Dutch item made from corn meal, spices and pork – boiled, made into a loaf and then pan-fried. Covered with breakfast syrup – it’s delicious!)

Three days later, the rest of my family arrived to see my dad. Everyone knew this would be the last visit with him. I later learned that he was concerned with what he’d wear when the kids saw him. He felt bad that he couldn’t look better for them. Because of his enlarged spleen and the fluid build-up in his abdomen, he could only wear pajama pants. Because of the fluid build-up in his calves and feet, he could only wear slippers.

The kids got to hug him and spend some time with him, but just a few hours later, his energy level dropped and he had to go to bed. Just an hour later, he became very ill and was rushed to the hospital. Robyn, my wife, and I stayed with him until 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning when the decision was made to admit him to the oncology floor.

One of the most heart-breaking moments in this entire process took place at around 1:00 a.m. that morning. We were still waiting for the results of the blood tests to come back from the lab. I explained to my dad why we were waiting and that it would be another hour until we knew the results. A couple minutes later, in a child-like, innocent voice, he said, “So I’m going home?”

That was the first time I felt like we’d reversed roles. I was now acting as his dad, explaining that he’d probably be admitted that night when all he wanted was to go home and sleep in his own bed. That would never happen.

After getting some sleep, we all returned to the hospital on Tuesday morning to visit with him. He was very, very weak and uncomfortable. He spent the entire day sitting on the edge of the bed – mostly staring at the floor, at times speaking softly to us. There were also times that he wanted to be alone.

My dad loved his family greatly, but he was also wired to like order and quiet. His grandchildren were a delight to him, but they also created some chaos when they were around. His preference toward the end was that people not be “hoovering” over him. That’s why he also did not want an open casket or a viewing after his death.

Of course he never really understood that the correct word was “hovering”. He did have a way of butchering the English language. I’m sure he was convinced until the day he died that he had a “prostrate” gland somewhere.

I asked him at one point on Tuesday when just Robyn and I were in the room if he could relive just one moment from his life, what it would be. He thought for a moment and said, “The first time I hugged and kissed Sylvia.”

He and Sylvia were so happy together. He loved being married to her. There’s a great picture of them in the limousine after the wedding ceremony in 1999. He looks like a kid on Christmas morning. His smile lit up the limo.

Sadly, his marriage to my mom did not always produce that kind of smile – certainly not in the last 15 years of their marriage. My mom died in 1997. She’d been sick for a long time – probably with some type of cancer. She just never told anyone – not even my dad. There was a lot she never told him. There was a lot she never told anyone.

Only after her death did my dad share with me some of the things in my mom’s past – things that put her life in context for me. There was a painful break-up with a boyfriend in college. My dad thought she never got over him. My brother died just hours after being born in 1963. Mom never saw him – never held him. She had an abortion a year later.

She never recovered from those painful events. Her capacity for intimacy and closeness was severely diminished. For 35 years, my dad was faithful to a woman who had very little to offer him in return. It makes his death that much more sad to me. He’d finally found a wife who could return his love, but their marriage was cut short after five years.

I watched his thoughts on the day before he died begin to transition from his life on earth to the life that awaited him in heaven. At one point, he said, “If Jesus came to me and said, ‘My son, you have two days left. The first day is devoted to Me to do whatever I ask. On the second day, you may do whatever you want.’”

My dad continued, “On the first day, I would do whatever God wanted. On the second day, I would take Sylvia to dinner.” He just wanted the simple things that had become impossible. I assured him that taking your wife to dinner was also devoted to God.

I also told him my sister, Terri, was on her way from North Carolina to see him. She would arrive around midnight. At 10:00 p.m., my dad was given a small dose of morphine to help him sleep, but at 10:30, he still refused to lie down. It only became clear to me later what was happening. He turned to Sylvia and said, “Why would I lie down if you’re still here?” I believe he knew there wasn’t much time left and if he went to sleep he might never wake up.

I kissed him goodnight and told him I’d see him in the morning. I learned from my sister the next morning that when she arrived at midnight that he was sitting up on the edge of the bed. It wouldn’t surprise me if he sat up soon after we left him at 10:30 – willing himself to stay awake through the morphine, through the fatigue, through the discomfort, through the final hours of his life, so that he could see his daughter one last time. That’s the kind of man he was. She had 30 minutes with him and left.

The last words my dad ever spoke came on Wednesday morning soon after we arrived at the hospital. By this time, his breathing was labored and he’d slipped into a coma. The oncologist encouraged us to say our good-byes to him even though he was no longer conscious. Sylvia entered his room and said, “Robert, I love you.” He opened his eyes briefly, looked at her and was able to get out, “I love you.”

That was 24 days ago. Today is a day my dad would have loved – warm, sunny – a day to walk on the boardwalk, plant a garden, or just run errands. I heard a song on the radio earlier. It made me want to call my dad just to talk – talk to the man who changed my world. I wish I could hear him say just one more time, “I love you, Greggy.”