My father was never a man who lingered over his youth.
He had been raised by a first-generation German immigrant father who believed discipline was love and silence was strength.
Emotion was not discussed; it was endured.
Whether it was that upbringing or simply his nature, I will never know.
What I do know is this: my brother, sister, and I know precious little about the man he was before he became our father.
That absence is one of the quiet losses of my life.
But once — just once — the wall cracked.
It was Christmas Eve. I was a teenager, which meant I already knew everything worth knowing and listened to almost nothing.
We were sitting in the kitchen, the room lit with the soft yellow glow of winter bulbs, the house hushed in that peculiar way it gets on Christmas Eve. Out of nowhere, my father began to talk.
He told me about a Christmas long before I was born.
During the Korean War, my father was drafted into the United States Army.
One December he found himself alone in California — young, far from home, and nearly broke — when Christmas arrived.
He was a Wyoming high school graduate, raised mostly in Michigan, and he knew no one.
On Christmas Eve day he left the base, wandered into a small restaurant, and took a seat at the counter.
Lunch was a bowl of soup. He made it last.
While he ate, an elderly man with white hair sat down beside him and ordered coffee. After a moment, the man turned and asked quietly, “Son, are you alone for Christmas?”
My father nodded and kept his eyes on the bowl.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Where are you from?” the man asked, lifting his cup.
“Casper, Wyoming.”
The man smiled. “Well, son, if you’d like Christmas dinner with my family, we’d be glad to have you. I know what it’s like to be alone on Christmas.”
My father thanked him politely and declined. He said he had other obligations.
It wasn’t true.
The man nodded, accepted the answer, and left the offer open. “If you change your mind,” he said, “you’re welcome.”
They finished their meals. They shook hands. And that was that.
As my father told the story, he stared at the kitchen table, not at me. Then he looked up.
“I’ve always regretted that day,” he said.
I was genuinely surprised. “I would have done the same thing,” I told him.
He nodded. “I know. I hope you don’t.”
Then he added, “When you get to be my age, you’d regret it as well.”
He explained that some opportunities come quietly and only once. That kindness offered is not an inconvenience but an invitation.
That by saying no, he didn’t just miss a meal — he missed a memory, a friendship, and a chance to let goodness into his life.
“I’ve always wondered,” he said, “what might have been different if I’d said yes.”
For a moment, my teenage armor cracked. My father wasn’t lecturing. He was confessing. He was handing me something earned through years.
And like a teenager, I ignored it. I went downstairs to watch television.
Now, decades later, I think about that Christmas Eve often.
I regret never thanking him for that lesson. Life, it turns out, offers far fewer chances than we imagine — fewer moments to accept kindness, fewer invitations to make the world better one small step at a time.
As the years pass, I have come to understand what my father was really teaching me that night. Kindness is not an interruption to life; it is life.
We do not get endless opportunities to give it and accept it, and we rarely recognize the important ones while they are happening.
This Christmas, when an unexpected invitation or quiet opportunity comes your way, don’t pass it by. Do not miss the opportunity to spread or accept kindness.
From my family to yours, Merry Christmas, and may your holidays be blessed.
Tom Lubnau served in the Wyoming Legislature from 2004 - 2015 and is a former Speaker of the House. He can be reached at: YourInputAppreciated@gmail.com
