NOTE: This is the story I submitted to the Heartland Christmas Memories invitation (both Tour and BAF book). I did an audio of it, added some background music, and sent it to my brother for his Christmas present this year. (But since he is not an OFC member, he won't get to peek at his gift early!)

Christmas and the Great Tormentor

My brother Mike, the well known Great Tormentor of baby sisters, laughed at me guessing what was under the Christmas tree. The job was too easy - Santa (and our parents) only used the fewest necessary layers of cheap green and red tissue paper to wrap our boxes of 64 crayons, new miniature staplers, and gym socks.

Maybe because he was an aspiring engineer and also hadn't tortured me enough that year, Mike decided to inflict his creativity on me by putting my gift in a box. It was large enough for a new TV or record player, but it was very light weight. Most perplexing, though, was the long cardboard tube, wrapped in tin foil, protruding straight upwards from the top of the box. On top of the tube, Mike built a small platform, and on top of the platform on the tube from the box, he perched a tiny aluminum-foliaged toy Christmas tree.

Well there was only one thing this cardboard tube- and tin-tree bedecked light-weighted monstrosity could be holding: An upside down open umbrella. So on Christmas morning, after the socks and crayons had been opened and put aside, I tore into the monstrosity - not because I wanted an umbrella, but because I wanted to be right.

My tormentor laughed at me trying to tear through his ugly layers of brown paper bag wrapping, deviously secured with strapping tape that sealed every possible point of entry. At last I got the box open, the tube dislodged, and discovered - nothing.

"Sister-Bell!" my brother mocked, calling me by the name of my least-favorite Christmas present ever, some lame talking doll. Before I could break into tears of frustration and disappointment, Mike said with a sneer, "You're not finished opening it."

True, there was a bit of brown paper bag left dangling on the back of the box. I angrily tore it off, and there, taped to the back side of the box, was a brand new record album.

No, I no longer remember the music - just the torture of a big brother teaching me to "think outside of the box."

Years later and miles apart, the Great Tormentor went off to raise his own family, with a son whose heart was too big to tease and a daughter whose mind was too sharp not to give back as good as she got.

Our jobs and lives made it hard to spend Christmases together, but we tried. One night in mid-December, my sister-in-law called to tell me my handsome brother had fallen at his job site. He had broken every bone in his face.

I spent a dark night crumpled on the floor, crying convulsively and screaming at my brother's God, "How could you hurt this man who loves you?"

I came to their house a week before Christmas, not because I had any special nursing skills, but because my niece and nephew would have no other Christmas without someone to take them shopping. My post-operative Humpty Dumpty brother - mangled, bruised, and bandaged - gave me the cash for the kids' presents and the keys to his car. No mysterious boxes, no wrapping, no Christmas Eve anticipation or morning excitement. Daniel wanted PlayStation; Rachel wanted a DVD player.

The kids were thrilled with their cash, and we piled into the car. But on the way to the mall we spotted a hobby shop, so we stopped.The first gift they wanted to buy with their Christmas cash was for their Dad.

My brother examined the model ship with pride, a replica of one he'd served on in the Navy, but put it aside to put together some other day, after he could put himself back together.

I remembered Mike's box. I thought about all the time he spent building it - for me. Before I left to return to my job and Christmas alone, he smiled painfully through his unmended bones:

"I'm glad you came."