Lessons

Life has a sense of humor that can not be denied. Most of the time we are too close to see that what happens to us is a cosmic joke, a prank to make us smile, or to show us that the events of our lives are not so serious or tragic as we think, or maybe just to help us evaluate what is really important.
After seven days without our luggage Sandi and I have gotten used to the idea of never seeing those "things" it contained again. We were most upset that the Christmas gifts we brought to our son did not arrive. One of his German friends suggested, in broken English, that the "Christmas Man" - his translation of Santa Claus- had stolen the luggage to keep us from usurping his duty to deliver the presents on Christmas Eve.
But, the lack of personal effects did not keep us from experiencing the sites of Berlin or impede the joy of seeing our son. His grasp of the language, culture and mythology, that is Berlin, becomes infectious and, for his father and mother, lovingly overwhelming at times. In fact the lack of personal property was freeing in some ways. We had everything we needed. We had what we came for, time with our son in his adopted city.
So there was sadness when the time came this morning for us to go to the airport for our third and last time. The snow was melting a little causing the walk to the bus to become more slick and treacherous than usual. Even the streets of Berlin were trying to keep us from going away. Our son's cell phone rang and he answered it with his German hello. After a brief conversation he ended the call. I am accustomed to waiting his German conversation is over to get the English translation. The call was from Tegel Airport calling to say that our bags had been found and they were ready to be delivered. If they had kept them at the airport we could have picked them up when we arrived a few minutes later, but the bags were on a truck headed for the apartment we had just left. Our Son told them to deliver the bags to our home in California. The man said it would take a couple of days.
There won't be an end to this story until our bags arrive in LA and the belated gifts arrive in Berlin, but the moral is clear: important things can not be lost in travel nor delayed by weather and certainly can not be contained in a suitcase.
Merry night before the night before Christmas,
Jay