One Christmas season I can never forget is the one nearly thirty years ago when my son was born. It was two days before Christmas and snowing quite heavily. My ex-wife had a rather hard labor and with every passing minute, as I waited nervously, I seemed to be sweating as profusely as if I were having contractions myself. I still remember looking out at the pristine snow on the landscape outside and the light flakes grazing against the glass of the hospital window. It’s strange that I can’t even remember now what time my son was born exactly – I missed most of my meals that day sustaining myself with coffee alone so I lost my sense of time quite a bit – but I can even today draw from memory in almost perfect detail the peaceful winter view from the window.

I’m not a religious person, but I think that day, in an agony of fear and impatience for my son to be born and my wife to be well, I felt the closest I ever had to that long ago story of another mother who struggled through so much to bring forth her child in a strange harsh land. It was the most spiritual moment I had had up to that point in my life. It was the first Christmas that I could personally relate to.