By Clark
Yospe
For the
Deseret News, 2008
This Christmas story takes place many years ago. It
takes place at a time the world was healing from the Second World War. It was
supposed to be "the war to end all wars." The soldiers who had been
fortunate enough to return home were finding new sweethearts. Others returned
to waiting wives and families. Still more never made it back but were
remembered and missed as their loved ones now approached the Christmas season.
Everywhere new neighborhoods were popping up. Little
two-bedroom homes of every color were made available to the thousands who only
qualified with special loans for returning veterans.
It was in such a little neighborhood that the snow
was falling softly on a little yellow shake-shingle home. All the other homes
on the street were dark as the long winter night dragged through its last
hours. But the little yellow house had one light burning in the bedroom where
two parents normally would be fast asleep. Only tonight, the young mother was
awake and alone. Alone, awake, and very worried.
The war had been long, and those years had brought
with them difficult times. Everyone left behind had sacrificed as gas was
rationed along with many of the staple foods like sugar and meat. Some of these
even disappeared completely as the struggling nation put an enormous effort to
the war. These foods and other pleasures would soon be taken for granted again
— but now they were still cherished as they became more available.
The few years since the war had offered time for
healing as memories faded on the hurt and death the far-away enemy had
inflicted on the nation. Christmas this year would be a time of peace. But now
another enemy had taken this young mother's returning soldier away from her yet
again. An enemy no one could see. One about which little was known but one that
could cripple all that it attacked — knocking the biggest off their feet and
even taking the lives of the strong, leaving behind only weakness and pain.
This enemy had been around for centuries but was at
its height of destruction in the early '50s — later to be almost eliminated by
a serum not yet discovered. If one was fortunate enough to survive this enemy,
you might find yourself living out your days on crutches or in a wheelchair.
The name they gave this enemy was polio, and this foe had put the father of
this little family in the hospital. Tonight, he lay inside the metal cocoon of
a noisy iron lung while it sucked in and out each life-saving breath.
Yet if you were watching through the window in the
early darkness on this winter morning, you would see from the light of the
small lamp next to the bed the young mother of two on her knees in the act of
prayer. It was a cry to God for help. What was she to do? Would he ever be okay?
Would he ever be able to move his arms again? Would he ever be able to walk?
Would he even live through the week, and would he ever return to his new job?
It was not a job for one on crutches or a
wheelchair. Being a policeman was hard work with many hours spent on your feet.
You had to have the strength to wrestle the meanest drunk or pull someone from
a car crash. Would he ever have enough strength return so that he could feed
himself, walk or be a father to his young children?
The question of how they could exist weighed on her
mind. How could they pay for food, the heat, the lights or give the two
children asleep in the next room something for Christmas? Being so young, they
would believe that Santa had forgotten all about them. It would break their
hearts. The new little yellow house had a payment due each month of $110. That
seemed like a fortune when her husband made less than $3 an hour at his job
—and even if he did recover, the job might not be there.
The house had been decorated for Christmas with
hand-me-down tinsel and lights. The young mother had asked for the used paper
sacrament cups from the church. She covered them with tin foil and hung them
like little silver bells on the scrawny Christmas tree.
Even the tree had been a gift from a neighbor who
knew how little they had and what they were going through. This kind neighbor
had hoped this holiday symbol would bring to memory some Christmas cheer from
better years gone by. He hoped the sweet smell of pine might be a welcome
breath in an atmosphere of despair. He, too, had remembered bleak Christmas
pasts in his own home. He had recalled the Christmas when he had been out of
work during a long strike at the copper mine. He hadn't missed the lunches he
had sacrificed to buy this little tree, and he would always cherish the look of
joy and relief on that young mother's face when it was delivered.
There were others who had empathy for the mother in
the little yellow house. One was the tall, burly owner of the local grocery
store with the wavy hair and the deep, booming bass voice. He had known the
family for the short time they had lived in the new little yellow house. They
were much like his little family, young — excited about life and the community
in which they now lived.
The store owner had grown to like the big policeman
who often came shopping with his wife. Maybe this was why he had done something
he had never done before when the mother had shown up with a child's wagon
loaded with empty pop bottles she had collected from neighbors and friends to
buy a few groceries. He had suggested to her that the store needed someone to
bake fresh cakes that he could sell in his little O.P. Skaggs grocery store to
other customers. So several times a week she would appear with more empty
bottles, buy flour, sugar, cocoa and other groceries to take home. Then the
following day bring in rich chocolate cakes just warm from the oven. It was his
little secret that when other customers showed up shopping to redeem their
empty glass bottles, he would load them up again for a late night drop on the
porch of the little yellow house. And the cycle would continue.
And this night the little yellow house was slowly
being covered in the soft, fluffy snow that had fallen through the wee hours.
Soon daylight would come up like the curtain of a stage, revealing a winter
wonderland scene much like those depicted on the few Christmas cards taped to
the refrigerator. Every branch of every tree was covered in white as the dawn
revealed the tiny neighborhood in a world of light and shadow.
Which would it be for the mother of the little
yellow house? The light of hope that all would be okay or the shadow that
nothing would ever be the same again? Today was Christmas Eve, and the little
Christmas pine had nothing under it but a few foil covered bells that had
fallen from their hooks.
Like every good Christmas story, there should be a
happy ending. But why were there two police cruisers pulling up to the driveway
of the little yellow house so early this morning?
The neighbor across the street had been up early
getting ready for the carpool that would take him to the copper mine. Through
the window he had seen the two police cars come with lights flashing but no
sirens only to stop across the street. Surely news at this time of the morning
could not be good news.
The young mother's heart was racing as she walked to
the front door to answer the persistent knock of the four policemen standing
outside. They had just come from visiting their co-worker at the hospital and
wanted to be the first to bring the news. Things were looking good. The doctors
had not been there, but they had observed their partner and friend was now out
of the big iron lung machine and breathing on his own. Oh, he still had little
use of one arm and leg, but with time they assured her that even that movement
might return.
And there was one thing more. A big box in the trunk
of one of the cars was removed and carried through the front door finding its
final rest under the Christmas tree. "It was just a little something for
the children from the other officers," they had explained. Everyone had
chipped in a few dollars for a few toys, but now a second box was brought
through the door filled and overflowing with cans of food. When asked they had
said, "It was no big deal. Just a little gift from the boys." Nothing
was mentioned about the real sacrifices that were made those weeks before to be
able to fill these two boxes.
This Christmas story was not over. It would still be
many months before all was back to normal for the family of the little yellow
house. There would be months filled with physical therapy and painful healing.
But the thoughtfulness of all that was done for that little family will be
remembered a lifetime. I was one of the children in the next room fast asleep
as my mother sent up a prayer to God so many years ago. A prayer that the
healer of the sick, the one who could make the lame to walk and the blind to
see would also look down and remember another father going through some earthly
trials. It was even this Only Begotten who had said, "Even if you have
done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me."
Even though it was so many years ago, it is the
Christmas I remember as the best.
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