Angels Kept Their Watch

Merry-making with my young family in Atlanta screeched to a halt when I received an urgent phone call from my mother in Utah. It was no glad tiding. My father had undergone extensive emergency open-heart surgery and was in a coma in the ICU.

All the sparkle of the holiday drained away as I fretted about my father’s condition. I felt helpless, far away, unable to feel any joyful anticipation of the season. So I boarded a plane and headed west to be with my mom and sit by dad’s bedside to wait for him to wake up. It was jarring to see him lying in the bed, breathing through a tube inserted into his throat. Over the next few days, all my siblings trickled in, one by one. We feared that we had already spent our last Christmas with him.

Members from the ward arrived, and the brothers gathered on either side of my father’s bed to anoint him with oil and give him a priesthood blessing. My brother, who had long since distanced himself from the Church, desperately wanted to join the circle even though he knew that he could not place his hands on my father’s head with them. Wordlessly, he took a place at the foot of the bed, knelt down on the hard floor, and gently laid the blankets aside. He placed his hands upon my father’s bare feet and bowed his head to join the mighty prayer of his heart with the elders’ blessing. After the blessing was affirmed with amens, my brother said, “I hope that God heard my prayer, too.”

Our petitions were answered when Dad woke up a few days before Christmas and began the long process of recovery. My brother told him then, “I knew I wasn’t worthy to put my hands on your head, Dad, so I put my hands on your feet instead and prayed with everything I had.” Dad took his hand and said, “Son, that’s the prayer that counted.”

On Christmas Eve, we carried in a small, lighted evergreen tree that softened the austerity of his hospital room. The smaller grandchildren gently piled upon his bed while the rest of us gathered round and joined our hands in a prayer of thanksgiving for the return of our dad to consciousness. We played Christmas music on a portable stereo and sang together,

“A thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices! 
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn! 
Fall on your knees! 
O hear the angel voices!”

The long ago birth of a savior felt present with us that night. Our dad was alive, brought back from the dead! O holy night! This was a Christmas unlike any other.

My heart turned toward home far away where my children waited for Christmas too. I left late that night to catch a red-eye flight to Georgia. As I drove to the airport, the streets of Salt Lake were dark and empty. I felt like the only person in the world. Big white, feathery flakes floated silently through the air. The contrast of the white flakes against the black night was striking, like angels piercing the darkness. It was the season’s first snow, a baptism and another new birth. The dampness on the pavement reflected the glow of the streetlights. Another hymn rose within:

“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light. 
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

The song of a love birthed long ago and far away was again alive in me that night, a night sacred above all other nights.

I boarded my flight home exhausted, relieved, and content. My excited children and husband met me several hours later in a deserted Hartsfield-Jackson airport. It was past three o’clock on a cold and frosty Christmas morning. So happy to be together again and filled with joy, we wended our way home along the Atlanta streets, also still and dark and empty. As we approached our house, we were surprised to see a warm flood of yellow light streaming from our windows. The Christmas tree lights were on, and there was a fire blazing in the fireplace. I said to the children, “It looks like Santa has already been here!”

Squealing with elation, we rushed into the house to find our table set with Christmas plates and flickering candles. A whole Christmas dinner was hot in the oven and the refrigerator was stuffed with more Christmas goodies. Santa’s elves (Relief Society sisters) had even placed gifts around the tree. Overflowing with magic and miracles, we ate our Christmas dinner by candlelight and opened our gifts in the early morning darkness. As the sun rose and the rest of the world rushed to open their presents, our Christmas had already come and gone. We blissfully dropped into our beds for a deep and dreamless sleep, with heaven all gathered in. From Utah to Georgia and all over the world, the angels had kept their watch of wondering love.

“How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is giv’n! 
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.”

Lisa Murphy is a mystic poet who has managed to check the boxes, so far: marriage, kids, home, family history. At present she is creating and checking her own list. It’s now or never. Welcome to me.

Art by Marianne Stokes (1855–1927).