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(for Roy, Karen, and Carmelita)
I don't think many people understand what I mean when I say that I was raised in a dirt poor family. Or how it still could be possible to know much happiness in the midst of such crushing deprivation. But little miracles sometimes happened. And when they did, I knew a complete kind of peace and joy that made me the richest boy in the world.
It was just 48 hours before
Christmas when I found my older sister (she was all of 19, and I was 13) crying silently in her kitchen. I was staying with her for the holidays because my mentally ill mother had become disturbed again, and abandoned me and my younger brother. This happened at least once a year for as long as I could remember. When my mother would disappear, I'd always search for a payphone (we never could afford one of our own), and call one of our relatives to come and pick us up. Then my brother and I would stay with my aunt or grandmother or sister (sometimes we had to be divided up) until my mother had come back, and started to act like her old (more stable) self again.
Actually, I was deeply puzzled by my sister's sudden tears. I loved her more than anybody else in my family, and was quite happy to be with her and my four year old niece for the holidays. I mean, we'd sit around her huge wooden kitchen table, drinking coffee and playing cards until midnight or worse. And just laugh and talk about everything under the sun. My little niece had several dog-eared coloring books and a small box of broken crayons. And we three spent many happy hours filling in the drab pages, transforming the small figures and faces with beautiful color and love. So I had thought she was as happy as I was myself.
I remember she wiped away the tears with the back of her hand, and after I asked her if something was wrong, she did her best to pretend I'd only been imagining things. She hurried over to the stove, and stirred the macaroni and cheese she was cooking. We literally lived on the stuff. It was quite cheap then. Especially the generic kind. And one box filled all three of our hungry stomachs up.
I noticed a letter on the table, and took a quick peek at it before I stuffed it back in its envelope, and set it aside. It was from
Public Aid. My sister's monthly check had been recently stolen (there were no working locks on any of the ancient mailboxes in her apartment building), and she had called her caseworker, only to be told (in writing) that another check could not be sent to her until the first few days of January. So it looked like it was going to be a
Christmas without anything. No tree. No gifts. No mouth watering supper. Just the three of us alone.
My sister placed three clean plastic plates on the table, and filled up each one with steaming hot macaroni and cheese. Then she asked me to get the pitcher of water from the fridge, and our three clean glasses still drying in the dish rack on top of the old fashioned sink. After I filled up all of our glasses, we sat down to eat. I took a quick bite, and noticed that something didn't taste right. It was way too watery and bland. "Sorry about the taste," she said, as she looked down at her sad plate. "But we're all out of butter and milk." I tried to think of something to say that would cheer us all up. "Hey, things could be much worse?" I said. "I mean, at least we still have plenty of macaroni and cheese." She looked up for a moment, and gave me a small smile.
Suddenly my niece hopped out of her chair, and dashed over to the nearest window. "Mommy, look at all the pretty snow!" She said. It looked like
Chicago was about to have another one of its great winter snowstorms. Cars parked on the street would soon be buried in snow and ice, and many people would not be able to leave their homes and apartments until somebody had cleared away the three feet high (or worse) snow drifts pressed against their front doors. And then I got a huge smile on my face. I knew what I was going to do to save
Christmas.
Early the next day, even before the sun was completely up, I gulped down a cup of black coffee, then got dressed as fast as I could. I made sure to put on two pairs of socks, and a heavy sweater under my thin coat. I didn't own any gloves or a cap. But my hair was long enough to cover up my ears, so I knew I was ready to go. I scrawled a quick note for my still sleeping sister, letting her know I would be gone for most of the day. Then I left the apartment, and began looking for folks that might appreciate a little help digging their way out of the snow.
It didn't take me very long at all. As soon as I'd reached the corner of our block, I spotted an elderly gentleman trying to clear the snow away from his parked car. He was not even half done yet, and clearly ready to drop. I went up to him, and asked him if he could use a little help? He gave me a smile of relief, and I took the shovel from his hand. And within ten minutes I'd managed to recover his car for him. He was so very grateful, that he gave me two dollar bills! That was still a lot of money back in 1976. I stuffed the money in my coat pocket, and told him he was helping me to save
Christmas. He laughed at what I said, and I waved goodbye before I walked away from him.
And before I'd even walked more than another block down, a sweet old lady asked me if I could clear away the huge pile of snow in front of her door. She passed me a small shovel through her first floor window, and five minute later I had another dollar bill in my pocket! I never had to walk very far to find somebody else needing a little help. And I always told them they really were helping me to save Christmas. And most of them seemed to think I was only making a funny little joke.
And so it went. For the next 8 hours, I kept on helping all these folks in distress, until my hands and feet became too numb from the cold, and I decided to step into a diner for a hot chocolate, and a chance to get myself warmed up again. I had no idea how much money I'd earned, but my coat pockets were bulging, so I knew it had to be a lot. I went straight to the Men's room so I could figure out how much money I had in private, and I nearly fainted. I'd somehow made a grand total of $99 dollars and fifty cents! That was more money than I'd ever seen in my entire life. I just about felt like a millionaire, as I left the bathroom, then went up to the counter, and sat down to sip a delicious cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top.
My numb hands and feet were slowly coming back to life again, and I could not stop smiling as I imagined the look on my sister's face when I returned home with all the things I intended to buy for
Christmas. We'd be feasting on something a whole lot better than watery macaroni and cheese for a change. How about a roasted chicken? And mashed potatoes and gravy! And a huge chocolate cake for dessert. And I was determined to get some sort of real Christmas tree, even if it was only one of those small three foot ones. And some lights! Plus a gift or two for my sister, and as many as I could manage for my niece. A new box of crayons and some coloring books. A little doll that came with its own pretend bottle of milk. Some kind of awesome board game we'd always wished we could have, like Monopoly or Masterpiece, so we could actually take a break from playing cards. Maybe even some new plates and glasses that were NOT made out of ugly plastic. Real glass ones for a change.
It would be getting dark before I finally made it home with everything I'd imagined, so many things (including a real three foot tall tree) that I nodded my head when the tree seller asked me if I wanted him to call me a cab to take me home. And when I knocked on my sister's door at last, and she saw me standing there with
Christmas in my arms, she started to cry, and I told her to stop being so silly, that we still had to put the lights on the tree, and the roasted chicken was getting cold.
Essay © 2005 by Dylan Mitchell
