Through the Looking Glass – A Christmas Message

I saw my grandfather forty years after he died. I loved him with all my heart, not because he gave me toys, bought me ice cream or took me to the funfair, but because he loved me so much. I was only eight years old when he died of a heart attack and I cried myself to sleep. The next day my mother told me that he loved me very specially, so much so that he made special plans for me and so I should always pray for him each day when I said my Morning Prayers. That is why I felt so guilty when I saw him again forty years later. The truth of the matter is I had forgotten to pray for him as often as my mother wanted me to. It was Christmas Eve when I saw him. I usually shaved in the morning, but as I was going to midnight Mass I thought I better make myself a little more presentable. I had removed all the shaving cream from my face apart from a white moustache under my nose, about the same size as the white moustache my grandfather always wore that tickled when he kissed me. I never thought I looked like him, but there he was looking at me from the bathroom mirror. Oh, yes, it was him all right, but he did not look as kind or as loving as the man I remembered.     read on....