by Roger

The following happened on Christmas eve in the late 70s.



On the evening of Christmas eve, after we had opened presents, Dad related this story about what had happened that morning.

Mom had bought a Bible for one of her grandchildren as a Christmas gift.  It would be hard to overstate how much importance Mom attached to the giving of that Bible.  She knew that her grandchild would have that Bible for the rest of her (or his) life and that every time he or she opened that Bible he or she would see "From Grandma Luebeck" on the first page.

In her bedroom on the morning of Christmas eve, she took the Bible from its box before wrapping it so as to fill in the "To:______" and the "From:______".

With her ink pen, she carefully wrote in her name.

Then her eyes moved to the next line and she saw that it read "From: _______".

She immediately realized that she had inked in her name in the "To:______".

She was devastated.  It was Christmas eve - too late to buy another Bible.  She threw the Bible across the room and broke down.

Fortunately, Dad was in the room and rose to the occasion.  He put his arms around her and told her that they would figure something out.  And he sure did.  From who knows where, he came up with some very nice smooth stiff paper with an adhesive backing, or maybe he just did an expert job of applying paste.

I remember it as Dad who did the handywork, but perhaps Mom was involved too.  I saw the finished product that evening along with everyone else.  The paper had been cut precisely and pasted over Mom's mistake with perfect alignment and no trace of glue. And onto that paper, Mom wrote in her grandchild's name.

It really was not such a bad thing in the end.

Though I was living at home at the time, I was not aware of what had happened until Dad told us that night.

We were all in the living room when Dad told us the story.  I happened to be standing near Mom as he told the story.  I had never hugged Mom in my life or ever placed my hand on her.  But my hand went automatically onto her back up high, and I felt all her emotion from the ordeal, all her motherly love.  And she seemed to be quite pleased with the whole affair. I know she was very pleased with Dad.

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