Anyway, ten years passed and I decided back in the winter on 1999 that I could rewrite it and make it a lot better than it originally was. The fruits of my labor are here, below, for you to read and enjoy as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

I'm very proud of this piece, because the thing that sparked me to rewrite it was a contest called the Writers Digest 2000 Writing Competition. I received an honorable mention certificate from Writers Digest in December and I went straight to their web site to see how I placed. Honorable mentions certificates are only given out to the 11th through 100th place participants in each catagory. There were ten catagories in all and A Gift For Father fell into one of the most broad catagories next to poetry...genre short story. I found my name under this catagory in the 90th place spot. There were over 19000 entries world wide, so you can very well see why I hold this work in such high regards.

Hope you enjoy it...

It was June, the middle of the Texas hot season, and the drought that plagued the state wrapped around the farmers like a shroud of death. My father was one such farmer, who would not live to see the new year, or a better day.

It has been over forty years, but I remember the last half of that year like it was just yesterday. The sun gorged the unclouded sky like the tip of a colossal white sword, wielded by the master of Hades himself. His hot breath bowed the trees along the field we were plowing, and singed our nostrils with every intake of breath. That particular day was only half gone, and the driving inferno of the drought caught father at a feeble moment.

I was ahead of Jake, our plow horse, pulling the reins of his halter as father drove the blade that Jake ripped through the ground. Father and I were two sweat soaked bodies, pulling each other along through the trenches of some vegetable war. We were red from the sun, with dirt caking to our skin like the rice patties of some distant, future conflict; our enemy was the scarcity of rain and our troops were the columns of unarmed, unwatered vegetables we so desperately tried to keep alive.

Jake whinnied and began to walk easier and with no struggle behind me. I looked back to see that the blade was no longer rooting up the dry ground, but was dragging on its side behind the horse. My father lay about ten yards behind, crumpled on the parched earth and shaking uncontrollably, eyes fastened on the sky.

The doctor told us that evening that father had had a heat stroke and not to worry. But father would need to take it easier in this heat. But as we would soon find out, it wasn't just heat stroke that tormented father that day, and again a week later, but something much worse.

July came, and as much as we loved them, there were no fireworks displays for me and the twins. Father was trying to work more days than not, but the intensity of his headaches would drive him to tears. I would often find him shielding his eyes from the sun with his hat, as he sat under the shade of some tree. Every once in a while his arms or legs would spasm uncontrollably.

Something was definitely wrong with father, and no mater how hard momma or I tried to persuade him, his stubbornness kept him from seeing the doctor again. He rarely kept his food down and he began to run into things around the house, such as door jams, the kitchen table that hasn't been moved in six years, and the favorite chair he so loved to sit in and rest.

August came in like a fiery furnace, embracing the drought harder against us. Father was no longer able to work and his body began to drastically whither. He spent most of his time in our darkened home, fanning himself with a fan. His eyes no longer reminded me of a hawk, quick and all-seeing, but now more like a frightened, wounded bird being starred down by a cat...they reflected the magnificent pain he was feeling behind that brow.

August left and September pounded into us like a left hook at a boxing match. Then the weather changed for the worse. The rains started with a fury, and the cold of winter followed close behind like a lonesome hitchhiker along for the ride, killing the driving heat of the summer. We had no fall that year...just the hot and the cold.

Each day as the weather got colder, my father sunk deeper into his pain, with the freezing air seeming to amplify it in his skull. While the snow began to fall in gradual sheets, the sun stabbed it's rays through the clouds, revealing the magnificent blue of the sky and the sparkling white hills and pines around the shallow valley in which we lived. Animals ventured about only to search for frozen berries or nuts in the white powder, while the braver ones, starving for food, began to torment our chickens. It would end up being the most beautiful, peaceful, yet saddest winter I would ever see.

I finally found a job. I would like to tell you that I farmed cotton or peanuts or other vegetables like my father, but with the icy grip of winter setting in, those jobs were not to be had until next spring. I want to tell you that I worked anywhere but the local tavern, but I can't lie, that tavern was the only place in town that would hire a lanky fourteen year old bag of skin and bones like myself. I never told my parents where I worked, and with father being ill, I guess they never really got around to asking me.

The trouble with working at the tavern was that I was a member of a dedicated Christian family. Born and raised in the small church about a mile from our home, I didn't want to blemish my name or the name of my family by being associated with the tavern. In my mind, whenever I reported to work I was working with the horned king himself, and excepting my own portion of the thirty pieces of silver that crucified my Savior.

My daily routine was to wake up an hour before dawn, feed the chickens in the barn and toss some hay to Jake. I would then kiss mother good bye. If father was awake, I would kiss him also, otherwise I wouldn't disturb him. I'd set out for town with Trusty trotting at my heels, with his tongue flapping in the cold, ears laid back to the wind, and tail pointing to the sky like an exclamation point. But I couldn't see where he found his excitement...I guess dogs are just naturally like that. Jake's skin rippled between my legs, he was cold too.

The roughnecks began drinking early most mornings, which justified me having to get to work so early. I'd arrive, don my apron and set to sweeping the floors. I guess you could call me the janitor, but no janitor I know had to clean up vomit and tobacco spatter every single day of the week. If ever there was a fight, I would crouch down behind the bar with a sawed-off shotgun in my hands, ready to defend myself. Thank goodness I never had to fire that gun. My ninety pound body would have been thrown backwards about ten feet. But I did have to clean up and remove any bodies that had been unlucky enough to be hit by gunfire. Don't get me wrong, the "Jolly Joy" was usually full of laughing men and women, having a good time, drinking and making complete fools of themselves. There was hardly ever a brawl, maybe once a month or so.

The only thing good about working there was the tips. Most of the patrons, men and women alike, left in such a drunken stupor that they wouldn't know the amount they were tipping me. During the time I worked there, I was able to buy more groceries for the house than daddy could ever provide from farming. There is definitely profit to be made in sin, and, reluctantly, I made my share.

During October, after a good freeze, father started taking a turn for the worse. His color was pale, like death itself, and his eyes had sunken into his skull, making him look like a bird. His soft black hair had turned silver before its time, his body shook and spasmed repeatedly as the tumor tightened its grip on his brain. And mother, kind mother, sat at his side constantly, praying diligently, for healing or relief, I didn't know which.

It was during these times, when father was at his worst, that I had no trouble leaving for work...not because I didn't love him, but because I was torn apart whenever I saw him this way, and couldn't bear the sight of his suffering. I personally prayed that he would somehow find relief.

Trotter quit following me to work through the single digit weather that November brought. I had to start walking to work when I went out to saddle Jake and found him laying on his side in the barn, frozen stiff. My tears for him froze to my face.

Christmas was coming and I wanted to get father a special gift, a parting gift because by now we knew that he wouldn't make it much longer. I had first seen the gift I wanted to get him on the day of the big freeze, the same day I found Jake dead in the barn. I had been walking along the main street going home from work, when I could no longer stand the cold wind. I ducked inside a small entryway of the thrift store to thaw out. While I worked the stiffness out of my joints, a small sparkle caught my eye from inside a wooden framed glass showcase in the front display window of the store.

The image in my mind, was my father's saddened face as it turned to joy and happiness as I give father that wonderful gift. The gift I had my heart set on getting was a beautiful pocket watch. The face was white ivory, the numbers were replaced by diamonds, and the hands were small, delicate, golden leaves. The case and chain were of sparkling yellow gold.

The price was very expensive, but the one habit I'd formed while working at the Jolly Joy, was to save my money. Every penny that didn't go for food went into a large glass mason jar that I kept under my bed. I counted the money that very night and was a little over five dollars short. It was December and Christmas would be here before I knew it. I was determined to make that five dollars before Christmas, so I put in extra time at the tavern.

One afternoon, a few days before Christmas, I took a break from work to go home and visit father. His voice was soft and low, totally quiet, like it was booming in his head. I saw something in his eyes that frightened me, yet relieved me all the same. What I saw in those eyes was the realization that death was coming soon, and those eyes reflected a happiness that I didn't expect. I didn't want to accept what I saw. Father was going to die! And he was happy about it?!

Christmas Eve morning came, and I sat down on my bed, counting the money I had saved over the last couple of months. I knew I had enough, but I wanted to be sure. I wanted to get an accurate count, so I took my time, my little fingers thumbing through the bills, then separating the change in their different denominations.

I bounded out of the house, my pockets jingling and heavy. I didn't even wait for the rest of the house to wake, I just left, knowing I would be in town before the thrift store opened, but I wanted to be the first one there. It was the fastest I had ever run in my life, and I didn't even notice the cold of Decembers icy fist.

As I stood before the store doors, tears streamed down my face, freezing to my cheeks. I looked through the hazy cold blur of the glass doors at the red "closed till new years" sign hanging from a small knob on the inside.

I turned on my heel and ran home in tears. The cold filled me inside and out, I wanted it to freeze my heart and soul. How would I face my father and tell him I didn't have a present for him. I had to listen to the horrible jingling of loose change in my pockets as I ran...it was the worse sound in the world.

I stormed into the house, upset and torn up inside, I threw the loose wad of money and change onto my mother's kitchen table, most of it spilling onto the floor. I ran to father's room to find him wide awake. "Where have you been?" he asked, referring to the way I'd left that morning before the others woke. "Something happen at work?" I slipped into the bed beside him and he brushed away the hair from my eyes.

"I was going to buy you a present for tomorrow, but the store is closed till new years," I said, stuttering through my tears.

"Where did you get the extra money, are the tips that good?" he asked, knowing all along where I had been working. Who had I been trying to fool?

It was then that I realized this would be the last time I ever saw my father alive. He was trying to tell me, in his own way, how proud he was of me for the sacrifices I had made as a kid, and what I had done for the family. The way he talked and the look in his eyes gave it away. I could tell that he knew too, that his time was short.

"Yes, I saved the extra money," I finally said after a long pause of sniffling and snorting. What is wrong with me? I'm fourteen years old and I shouldn't be crying like a baby, but I was, and it wasn't about the gift any more. I was already beginning to grieve over the loss of my father, and he wasn't even gone yet. What kind of person was I to think like that?

"Good," he said simply, and it was a long while before he spoke again. I sat watching him as he closed his eyes to rest. The veins in his temples pulsed rhythmically and I knew his headaches were worse than ever before. "About the present?" he prompted, eyes still shut.

"Yes?" I asked, urging him to continue with a voice that sounded not unlike a frog.

"It's the thought that counts," he said with a smile. I knew that that smile was the hardest expression he had ever had to make.

"You're going to die soon, aren't you?" The question came out of my mouth before I had thought twice about asking it. I had to know for sure even though I knew the answer, needed the confirmation, yet I didn't, I couldn't hear the word he was about to utter...

"Yes," he said, tears of his own beginning to roll down his cheek, they were the size of boulders. "Yes, I am. The pain is still there, but I've gotten to the point where I no longer feel it much." I knew he was lying to me to ease my mind but my grief must have been showing on my face because he continued to talk, consoling me. "Son, I am getting the most wonderful gift for Christmas that anybody could ever receive."

The way I looked at him must have been funny, for a little laugh came from those thin, aristocratic lips.

"You think I'm crazy, don't you? You think that it's crazy to say that death is a 'good' gift, but the gift isn't death, son, its heaven."

As I watched him talk, it seemed that a new strength started to flow through him. He told me the story of Jesus again, and of His salvation through His blood sacrifice, the riches of heaven, and the glory he'll be a part of. "Best of all," he exclaimed, "I know I'll get to see you, momma, and the twins again!"

I looked at him for a long while, fresh tears flowing from both of us as I reached over him and hugged him to me tightly.

"I'm going to miss you, Daddy." I said, kissing the side of his head.

"I'm going to miss you, too, Greg."

Those were the last words I heard from my father. While we cried together, I felt him shudder and his body went into another series of spasms, then he was still, his last breath whooshing up out his lips and I knew that he was no longer with me.

I looked at his profile for a long time, watching the peacefulness that had overtaken him with his dying breath, the pain was over.

The twins and mother stood at the door behind me, crying silently. I did not turn to see them there, but I knew where they were. Love has a way of doing that, surrounding us like a hot tub of relaxing water, refreshing, soothing, calming. All I had to do was turn over in the bed and I'd find that love and support emanating from them, and right then, at that very moment, that's all that I needed from them, just to know that they were there if I needed them.

Caressing his face with the tips of my fingers, I kissed the side of his cheek then closed his eyes for him. He looked so peaceful now, almost happy, as if he were just resting comfortably now, something he hadn't been able to do in almost six months. His pain was finally gone.

"Merry Christmas, Father," I whispered and rose to join my surviving loved ones.

I bought that pocket watch on the first of January, and now, forty years later, I still carry it with me. On the back of that watch was a smooth, polished, clear space that I had engraved. And now, I sit here remembering those early years as my own son is about to become a father. I plan on giving him the watch on the very day of his child's birth, hoping to start a tradition that would last from here to the Return. I hope he'll take care of it like I did, and cherish it even after I'm gone. And hopefully the words engraved on its back will remind him of the father who loved him through life, and of the Father that waits in heaven.

I sit here, turning the watch over and over in my shaking hands. I smile at the memory of my father as my fingers run across the engraved words..."A gift for father."