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Author's Chapter Notes:
I've had this story rolling around in my brain for awhile and I got inspired this weekend and out it finally came. Thanks to my awesome beta Katie I've got it ready to post! Please enjoy!

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Jim counted on his fingers the amount of times he’d been in this position. Thankfully, he was able to place them all on one hand, but still, it was edging near to where he’d need to use his second wrinkled hand. He looked around the stark white hospital room and shuddered; he hated it when he had to be here.

“Jim?” his beautiful wife’s voice asked from the doorway, “Are you awake?”

He turned his head towards the door and took in the beauty of his wife. Her hair had long since turned an ashy mix of white and gray, the wrinkles around her eyes showed many worries through the years, and she had laugh lines around her mouth. But despite all that, he was as much in love with her as on the day he married her, if not more.

“Good,” she said as she walked in further, “the kids want to come up, but I told them to let you rest if you were already asleep. You need your rest.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted, his voice still sounding raspy and quiet. “It’s just a little chest cough. I don’t understand why you made me come to the hospital. It would have gone away on its own.”

“So you say,” she said with a chuckle, “but I wasn’t going to take any chances.”

“But it is Christmas, “ he pouted, “who wants to be in the hospital for Christmas?”

“No one,” she said, placing her hand gently on his arm, “but I’m not ready to lose you yet, and neither are the kids. We just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I know that,” he answered, “but I hate not being able to see my own grandkids open their Christmas presents.”

“I know,” she said again, “but please don’t be mad at me, Jim. I really didn’t want you to be here either.”

He nodded as his eyes fell closed, “No, I’m not sleeping again. Not before I have visitors.”

“They can come back,” she suggested, “they won’t mind.”

“Send them up,” he insisted, “I won’t sleep until I’ve seen them.”

“Okay,” she nodded, “I’ll be right back. I love you.”

“I love you too,” he answered a smile brightening his face. “Just get those pesky grandkids of mine up here.”

“Yes sir,” she answered with a mock salute. “Right away.”

James Anthony Halpert looked down at his leathery hands and sighed. It was his eighty-third Christmas and he couldn’t believe he was spending it in the Philadelphia Memorial Hospital.

He pulled out a small leather bound journal from the messenger bag on the table next to his bed and opened it up to the ribbon-marked page. Slowly, he wrote on the top of the page, Thirty thousand, three hundred, and seventy-two. That was how many days he’d been on this planet. It was an odd quirk, he knew that, but counting his days had been something he’d picked up in elementary school, in the fourth grade.

And he’d been doing it ever since.

A large wooden box stored the hundreds of notebooks he’d accumulated over the years, all detailing moments from every day of his long and fruitful life.

It had all started from a simple school assignment and it had turned into a habit he would never outgrow.

He would chronicle every day he lived so his kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids would be able to look back and have a portrait of who he was. Yes, maybe his hands didn’t work quite as well as they used to and maybe his eyesight was slowly getting worse, but he had yet to miss a day since that first day of writing, and he wouldn’t break that now. So, he began to write…

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