The Christmas Grandma

By Robyn Nykaza

For the Deseret News, 2006

The Christmas I remember best started with a miracle. Not a miracle in the gift giving, receiving, feasting, normal Christmas miracle expectations, but in the quiet awe of truly seeing and recognizing a miracle for what it was.

Dorothy Linton was born on a snowy Christmas Day in 1917. Her parents were both immigrants to the United States from England and were very poor. Dorothy grew up with an amazing musical talent and spent many hours over many years creating beautiful music for soloists and choirs. She raised six children alone, and even took in a daughter and three grandkids after a divorce. I was one of those kids.

At the time, my grandma was sweet and loving, but I was too young to really have a friendship with her. Due to health problems in later years, she came to live with our family when I was in elementary school. Being a little older, I finally got to have a friendship with my grandmother. I would spend hours in her room watching TV, doing crossword puzzles or just talking. She had the softest arms. That probably sounds very strange, but I would kiss up and down her arm just to feel that soft skin against my lips. I do that now with the soft skin of my own babies, but it's not the same.

Christmas morning 1981 just hours after my parents had finally made it to bed after setting Christmas up, my grandma got up and started playing Christmas carols on the piano. She was like a kid, and you have to remember, it was her birthday.

As we got even older, she would come and stay with us when my parents would go out of town. I remember watching out the pantry window waiting to see her car drive up. I was 14 or 15 and still giddy with the excitement waiting for my grandma to come.

Shortly thereafter a lump was discovered in her side. It looked to be about the size of a mason jar under her skin. She would hold it and say, "This is my ticket home!" You see, she had lived a hard life. But through all of her trials, she never strayed from the teachings of living a Christ-like life. She knew what was coming, and she was ready for everything. A reunion with her parents and family members that had gone on before awaited her, and she was ready.

She was put in the hospital just days before Christmas. I was a junior in high school and was part of the Davis High choir. We had a concert on Temple Square that year and came home late on a Sunday night. I found out that she was in the hospital and demanded to be able to go see her. It was a school night, but I prevailed. I remember thinking how small she looked in the big hospital bed. She was moved to a care center, and I got to visit her again on Christmas Eve. She wasn't awake during our visit, and I remember thinking, "Please take her! I'm going to miss her, but please take her!" She was suffering, and she was ready. We went home that evening with plans to come back Christmas Day, but that visit never happened.

You see, the miracle came around 9 a.m., on Christmas Day 1987, her 70th birthday. We had finished up our Christmas morning and were going to start getting ready to visit her when the phone rang. I was holding a teddy bear and sitting quietly in the living room. I couldn't hear the phone conversation, but I knew what had happened.

Grandma got her gift. She got to go home. She got to leave that frail, sick body behind, and she was having a wonderful reunion. I pictured it in my head as though those loved ones were waiting, watching with giddy anticipation for her to show up, just like I had so many times when she'd come to visit us.

It has been 19 years since those events took place, and yet I remember them all so vividly. I remember being angry with my 16-year-old self. I didn't cry. I couldn't cry. It was what we had been waiting for, and you can't cry when you get what you wished for.

I've cried many times over the years that have followed. Even now as I relive them here, I can't help but cry. But at that time, and it remains true today, I had seen a miracle, and I would never forget it! Christmas Day saw the birth and death of a truly elect soul, and I cherish the heritage that she has bestowed on us. Not only in the incredible music that she left behind, but also in the lessons of unconditional love that all of us as her family have continued to feel from her.

She truly was a Christmas miracle!