My Christmas Eve

By Bob Welsh

Note: Bob Welsh is an author & inspirational speaker. Drawing from a lifetime of experiences that include a tour of duty in the U.S. Navy and 29 years as an Ohio State Trooper, Bob has mesmerized listeners around campfires, in churches, schools and auditoriums with inspirational stories of fact, fiction and humor set to verse. Bob’s stories deliver messages that will put a lump in your throat, a tear in your eye, a chuckle in your belly or a profound thought in your mind.
www.bobwelsh.com

My Christmas Eve
By Bob Welsh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxjZB5S_g7s&feature=youtu.be

The hour’s late, should go to bed
Near midnight I believe
But memories keep me wide awake
This snowy Christmas Eve.

Yes, memories of my kids moved on
Each has their separate life
Now the holidays have changed
Since angels took my wife.

The toys, the food, the Christmas cheer,
My wife would bear the load
Because I would work most holidays
State Trooper on the road.

Just sitting in my easy chair
So many years retired
I reminisce of times gone by
And all that’s transpired.

Of all the many happenings
That seem to come to light
A multitude of them occurred
Right on this very night.

A drunken woman in a wreck
Who died on Christmas Eve
Leaves memories of a tragic case
Most people can’t believe.

I had to drive to where she lived
To tell her next of kin
And found the run down mobile home
She had been living in.

The person answering the door
I still recall today
A little girl about four years old
She said, “I’m Sue McKay.”

I asked her if her dad was home
And felt the longest pause
She said, “My daddy ran away.
You must be Santa Claus.”

My mommy said you’d come tonight
If I just stayed in bed
And bring a pretty doll for me
That’s what my mommy said.”

I broke the law that Christmas Eve
Did not call child’s care
They’d merely put her in a room
And that I could not bear.

I picked her up and took her home,
My wife tucked her in bed
And wrapped a pretty doll for her
Just like her mommy said.

Adopted by a loving home
And soon they moved away
I won’t forget that Christmas Eve
And little Sue McKay.

Another bitter Christmas Eve
A blizzard to behold
Had left a family in a ditch
Just trapped there in the cold.

By grace of God I spotted them
All cold and gaunt with fright
I drove them to a motel room
To safely spend the night.

One Christmas Eve a homeless man
Shivering and wet
Was trying hard to get a ride
I’m sure he’d never get.

I picked him up and drove him
To a diner on the hill
To warm his bones
And left him with a five dollar bill.

Strange how when your all alone
With memories you recall
You think of everything you’ve done
And was it worth it all.

I think about my God, my job,
My children and my wife
Would I do it all the same,
Could I relive my life?

Then come a knock upon my door
This late who could it be
A neighbor or a Santa Claus
Come to visit me.

The figure standing in the cold
Gives me a sudden fright
A trooper with that solemn look
Dear God, who’s died tonight.

I’m flashing back through bygone years
And how I’d often stood
On someone’s porch to bring them news
And it was never good.

Is this how life gets back at me
For misery I’ve induced
Where pain I’ve cause some other folks
Has now come home to roost.

But looking in the trooper’s eyes
My mind is in a whirl.
I see a pleasant countenance
The trooper is a girl.

She smiled and reached to shake my hand
And the silence wasn’t broke
Until a tear rolled down her cheek
Then she softly spoke.

“I’m sure you don’t remember me
But thought I’d stop and say
God bless you on this Christmas Eve –
I’m Trooper Sue McKay”