Throughout our city, wherever we traveled, we heard it.
In grocery stores, libraries, Target and Wal-Mart – even during church services where it occurred in stereo sound – one person in the aisle echoed by someone across the room.
The Great Cough of 2016.
In spite of our vitamins, clean eating and daily spraying through the house with Lysol, my son and I both caught the Great Cough aka the Christmas bug.
With all our plans for the holidays suddenly deleted, we dragged our pitiful selves to our respective recliners.
The cat glanced back and forth as we coughed, trying to rid our bodies of what the doctors called “Upper Respiratory Infection.”
Christmas plans immediately changed. None of our usual holiday foods. I wasn’t cooking anything except chicken soup.
Unwrapped presents waited in Amazon boxes. Worse, we were not able to spend Christmas with the family in Oklahoma.
We didn’t want to infect the entire clan, and truthfully – they didn’t want us within breathing distance.
Why take our germs across the state line to risk the health of the entire family?
This was the first year since I served as a missionary in Honduras that I did not see my mother for Christmas.
We found an urgent care open on a Sunday. Bless the hearts of that medical staff ! We armed ourselves with legal drugs. Thank you to the hard-working people at CVS.
Fully medicated, we each returned to bed and slept late — when the coughing didn’t wake us up.
But Christmas happened in spite of illness. A few days later, my son’s girlfriend and her family invited us for a delicious meal and an evening of fun. We played table games, wearing hygienic gloves, trying not to cough on anyone.
The next day, we piled cough drops into my purse and escaped the sick house for a movie. I highly recommend “Collateral Beauty” with Will Smith’s poignant performance of a man dealing with intense grief.
The twist at the end gave us plenty of conversation starters as we managed an evening breakfast at IHOP.
Then we collapsed in our recliners again. Still coughing, but finding some joy in Christmas shows. The Grinch again tried to steal Christmas from Cindy Lou Who while George Bailey learned how to live a wonderful life.
Our Christmas may have looked different and not what we planned but we survived it.
The promised Messiah still came. The beauty of Luke chapter two remained solid and the twinkle lights on our tree reflected a glowing angel at the top.
Hope survived our Christmas changes as gradual healing brought us upright to face a new year.
The Great Cough of 2016 did not win, because Christmas is not about food, health, presents or travel.
Christmas incorporates the beauty of music, joy, light and a Love that forever transforms lives.
No matter how we celebrate the season, the root of its beginning cannot change.
And in that security, we find hope in the eternal promise. Immanuel – God is still with us.
©2018 RJ Thesman – All Rights Reserved
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I enjoyed your post today and loved the last line.
I wanted to just say thank you for all your help and encouragement so far.
I took a note or two on a pheasant hunting trip and used that new little journal and wrote the attached story about tattoos. Looking forward to working on the book in 2020. I also held up sending out the poem In Between as I just want all my potential revenue to be in2020 as I have no idea what tax implications may be. Who likes to talk about that stuff?
I also wrote a Thanksgiving poem and I am doing early preparation for the book. These two will likely go in the book. Looking forward to working with you this next year.
Tom Dickerson ________________________________
Thanks, Tom. I appreciate your comments. Merry Christmas!