I was in 2nd grade when I grew a little wiser and my world turned upside down. This year would be a tough one because this is the year when we became homeless. Different people from church or the community when they heard about our plight took us into their homes---sometimes it was for one night, a couple of days, weeks…etc. Eventually one of my mother’s friends who lived way out in the country allowed us to stay with them until we could be self-sufficient. My mom’s friend had a lot of kids and they barely could afford food and basic necessary items for their own children and yet they took us in, 2 more mouths to feed, how grateful we were.
The house was always a bevy of activity with kids running in, out, around all of the time, so when my mother had to have a private conversation with me she would bring to the bathroom where we had privacy and sat me on the toilet covered seat. This particular time she called me into her private office, will forever be seared into my memory and I’m sure hers too.
I remember how serious, quiet and careful with her speech she was. I thought she had called me in the bathroom this time to tell me we had to leave the place we were staying at, it had happened before and I knew how serious a discussion it was. This time she seemed more anxious and sad than she had previously.
I remember how cold it was outside with the snow and wind, it was December and very near Christmas. All the kids at school and at the house were excited with anticipation of Santa coming to their home with toys for them. I must admit I was excited too, because I knew Santa was real and that he would certainly know where I was staying and what toy to leave for me.
The excitement would stop for that year and all others to come after my mother’s private conversation with me. As she spoke I heard a quiver in her voice, the kind of quiver that comes when someone is trying to stop from crying.
It was done and I felt sick, I thought I was going to pass out from what she told me—the truth was too difficult for me to comprehend. I knew she told me something, but surely it couldn’t be true? My world felt like it was crashing around me. I felt like I was suffocating, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t talk…surely, it wasn’t true? Shocked and ghostly pail, I looked up at my mother’s face, to see if she wasn’t smiling at me in a mocking or teasing way, but she wasn’t—I didn’t understand. Please God it wasn’t true---tears started to flow from my eyes, barely seeing my mother’s own tears—she knew she had destroyed my dreams. She knew this would change the way I viewed the world forever and she couldn’t take it back because it was true.
She had destroyed my world---fantasy as it were, but every girl and boy have beautiful fantasies of what the world is and shouldn’t be broken until they find out themselves—but this had to be done and my mother understood that.
The fantasy I held to be true was that Santa was real and that he was going to find me and place a gift under the Christmas tree for me---but this wasn’t true and my mother knew it and she had to try to protect me from something else that could have been worst. We were homeless and she couldn’t afford a gift for me nor could the family we stayed with—she didn’t want me to believe Santa didn’t like me or that I had been a bad child who didn’t deserve gifts at Christmas. So she did the best she could for me, she told me the truth.
As I sat for a while trying to understand the real world around me, I finally through muttered tears asked in childhood innocence “You mean there’s no Easter Bunny Either?” The rabbit was out of the bag so to speak and I found out there was no Easter bunny either.
The next day I went to school wiser and more aware of the harsh reality of the real world. Several days went by when it was Christmas. As promised there was no present under the tree, even though I really hoped my mother got it wrong and didn’t really understand, even at that young age, I knew not all adults knew everything, .
A couple hours into the other children unwrapping their gifts a strange car drove down the snow laden driveway. We heard the snow crunch under the tires of the car as it drove closer to the house. It was my grandmother and she had a box wrapped so carefully in her hand with the lapel “From Santa To Kelly”—by then it was too late, I knew the truth and there was no taking it back. The gift was from a family friend and her family who had heard about how I wouldn’t have any gifts for Christmas
The box was a shoe box that held little treasures a little girl loved. There were pretty socks, candy and other things. The thing that I kept and treasured for years was a little stuffed monkey---oh how I loved that monkey-
--the sting of the truth about Santa still stung but it was lessened by this gift of kindness.
The gift gave my mother hope again, hope in people being kind to a little girl and it gave a little girl some joy that Christmas day. To this day I am grateful for that shoe box and the love it carried.
Picture
http://www.freechristmaswallpapers.net/wallpaper/Christmas-Tree-Nature/
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