The Christmas of my 16th, when decorating the Christmas tree with Mum, I accidentally dropped and broke an old glass ball. It had been on our tree for as long as I could remember.
Regretfully, I knelt to pick up the pieces and was surprised to find a small piece of paper among them. Unfolding the tiny note, I recognized my father's penciled writing. Lifting my eyes, I saw my mothers smile.
"Your Daddy wrote that and put it in that blue ball during our first Christmas together, just before you were born," she said.
I wouldn't have believed it, if there hadn't been the note in my hands. Daddy always regarded getting the tree decorated as an important task. And yet this bit of yellowed paper proved that long ago my Daddy had done something romantic at Christmas.
Carefully putting the note aside, I cleaned up the pieces, wishing I could reassemble them. "You needn't fit the parts of the old glass ball together again. Pick out another one and put the note back inside." Mum said.
Now, as I celebrate the holidays without Mum, who died of cancer years ago, I feel really sad. Each year as I decorate Christmas tree. I recall the moment I shared with her that winter afternoon and blink away my tears.
As I carefully handle those old glass balls. I love knowing that one of them holds a secret between Daddy and Mum — a secret that was obvious to all who knew them.
The note inside one of those old glass balls on Christmas tree holds the heart of my parents' marriage in three warm words: "I love you."
