Make Contact

   The cold chill of the Christmas season draws us near to one another. We gather around tables and near fireplaces..loved ones all around. Despite the long list of things to be done and the hectic holiday traffic, our family sets our mind with stern determination to make contact.
    Not the contact by email or an online chat, but a face to face or phone to phone contact. Contact with the home bound, the assisted care residents..contact with family far away or a long lost friend. Lonely people are every where waiting for a friendly visit or phone call.
     As I join my parents at a local hospital for my father's heart cath, I am reminded of one Christmas contact. My friend and I had children close in age..and both had children in the hospital for days on end. Home from that now, our hearts went out to families stuck in those rooms during Christmas. We bundled our kids and hit the store filling bags with toys, games, and books...delivering them to the very floor of the hospital our own kids had been in just weeks before.
    Only a few years later, that friend and one of her daughters died in a car accident. Of the many fond memories I have of her and her family, our day of 'making contact' is one of my favorites. We not only made contact with families, but made contact with each other..a connectino that will last eternity.