The Spirit of Christmas

Christmas just doesn't happen on Christmas Day - it can be any day of the year, any time of any day...when you invoke the spirit of Christmas.
A 16 year old terminal cancer patient gave me one of the most prized Christmases of my life. In 1995, Susan Fields was quickly running out of treatment options at CHEO, her health - and her spirits - declining as December approached. I made her a deal: she stayed alive, I'd take her to New York where she could have my VISA card at Macy's!.
And so it was off to New York, Susan, her mom and brother and me. Susan was not feeling very well, and used all her strength just to make the trip. She curled beneath a blanket in her seat on the plane all the way there. She said little on the limo ride from the airport to the hotel in Manhatten, and even less as we checked into the Marriott.
That's when the angels took over. The limo driver, so taken by her beauty and her obvious pain, dropped us off and headed to a mosque to pray for her. (He would do that for the entire three days, drive us, then go prayer for his "beautiful Canadian". The Marriott hotel clerk - advised of the seriousness of the illness - promptly changed her room to a much larger and comfortable suite, compliments of the hotel. (Marriott is a founding member of the Children's Miracle Network, representing 170 children's hospitals across North America.)
The weekend was a blur for all of us. Susan drew strength and smiled through the Radio City Music Hall's annual Christmas show; she did manage a half-hour at Macy's in a wheelchair - treating my credit card gently (brother Charlie did lots of damage to it!); and even managed to eat a little at the Manhatten Planet Hollywood.
On the return flight, the pilot invited her into the cockpit - she was too sick and too exhausted to accept, so Charlie got to watch the pilots land the flight in Ottawa!
It was a quiet, subdued Christmas for the Fields family and the extended family at CHEO. Susan kept her part of the bargain - she enjoyed as best she could Christmas, and New Year. And mischeviously wrote and produced a rock-music funeral tribute for me to host, after her passing in late January.
She has never faded in my memory - she gave all of us so many gifts of joy while she lived, and everlasting joy in her embracing of the angels whom she saw at her CHEO bedside in the final minutes. "The angels are here for me," she smiled.