Monday, December 21, 2009

On Christmas Miracles

For the last four years, I've written a Christmas story in lieu of sending out Christmas cards. Below, please find this year's story.

Christmas Miracles
by Brad Rohrer
Christmas 2009

“Thank you for letting me be here today. I realize, looking out, that I don’t know many of you, and that’s probably to be expected. I can’t claim to be as close to Nicole as some of you, but she has affected my life greatly. In all honesty, her impact on my life has been profound and lasting, and that’s prompted me to be here today.

“I think the right way to start one of these is by talking about the first time she and I met. Okay, here goes: ‘I remember the first time I met Nicole.’ Truthfully, I don’t know that it was the actual first time we met, or the first time we spoke, but for the purposes of this, it will be.

“It was about two weeks before Halloween, three years ago. Leaves were falling, the weather was turning crisp, and I was working as an Assistant Manager at Walgreens at the time - a job I did not enjoy at all. That day, Nicole and two of her friends came in. One of my cashiers came to me and told me she thought the three girls that just came in were stealing makeup. I went over to that aisle to check on them and sure enough, there were three eleven year-old girls, one of whom was tucking some ‘Lip Smackers’ in her purse. I escorted all three of them to the office and my manager – Ms. Walker - started reading them the riot act.

“When she said she would call the police, the two other girls – both of whom had merchandise in their purses, by the way – burst into tears. Nicole kept quiet the entire time. I remember observing them and noticing the differences – the other two girls were both dressed a little ambitiously for their age, and Nicole was wearing jeans and a Chicago Bears T-Shirt (which may have engendered some sympathy from me). The other girls were a little...puffy?....and Nicole was so thin. The expression “all knees and elbows” popped in my head and just stuck there.

“Ms. Walker was talking to them about Responsibility and Civic Duty when the police showed up. I briefly talked with Officer Slamkowski (our designated shoplifting liaison, it seemed) and he asked me what the girls had taken. I explained that the two other girls had each taken makeup, but that it didn’t appear Nicole had anything. He went inside the office and brought the girls out. As they walked past me, Ms. Walker told them she didn’t want to see them in the store unsupervised ever again. It was then – not when they were caught, not when the police were called - it was THEN that she started crying. It seemed odd to me.

“Well, I was scheduled to close that night, so I put it out of my mind. I mean, catching shoplifters wasn’t exactly a rarity in those days. Later that night, I was at the photo counter when Nicole came back in. I recognized the T-shirt, and the knees and elbows, I guess, when she approached me. She handed me a letter and just stood there. I still have that letter, and I’d like to read it to you today, to give you an idea of the kind of girl she was.

“Dear Mr. Stephenson – I should point out that my last name is spelled correctly, which is a huge deal, as it meant she had actually put effort into the letter, and not just guessed – Dear Mr. Stephenson, I am truly sorry for our actions earlier today. It is wrong to steal and we made a bad decision. I am writing to ask that I be allowed to be in the store, because I have to pick up my grandpa’s medication for him sometimes. He lives in the Heisel Retirement Center and can’t get around on his own. I promise I will behave when I am in the store. Signed, Nicole Rumphley

“I didn’t know how to react. To show that kind of maturity said a lot – not only the letter, but also the concern for her grandfather over herself. I had already made up my mind, but pretended to still be considering.

“’Nicole,’ I said, ‘I need you to be one hundred percent honest with me. Did you steal anything?’

“She paused before answering. ‘No,’ she said, in a clear, quiet voice, ‘but my friends did, and I’m supposed to be the responsible one. I should have stopped them.’

“I said ‘Nicole, if I felt I had to take responsibility for all the dumb things my friends have done, I would be the guiltiest person on Earth. You’re allowed to come into the store, but your friends aren’t. Do you understand?’

“When I said that - honestly, it was like watching a Disney flower see the little cartoon sun and just bloom all at once. She thanked me over and over, and then scampered out of the store. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that she hadn’t been worried about getting in trouble. She had been worried about not being able to pick up her grandpa’s medication.

“I saw her from time to time after that, in the store obviously. She would pick up her grandfather’s medication and usually a Snickers bar – I envied her ability to enjoy them, as it’s been years since I’ve been able to sneak a candy bar guilt-free. She always had such energy; some say it was the Snickers bars, but I believe it was more than that. She was so sunny, and just radiated optimism and joy, affecting everyone she met.

“The crux of the story comes on Christmas Eve, three years ago. At Walgreens, Christmas Eve is the busiest day of the year, and one of my favorites. Everyone works, all of the employees bring in a dish to share, and we all actually have fun working. I had to open the store, getting there extra early, because I knew the day would be hectic. Shortly after I arrived, the phone rang. The assistant manager who was supposed to come in and work from noon to 8:30 was calling to say that there had been a last-second cancellation, and his local band had a chance to open up for a huge national band that night. The opportunity was too big for them to miss, he said. I was happy for him, of course, but very disappointed for myself. I knew I would have to work later, and my plans to watch ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ by myself that night were pushed back.

“In a surprisingly out-of-character move, Ms. Walker said she would stay later, and that I could still go home at five o’clock. I was delighted. I remember saying ‘It’s a Christmas miracle’ to my camera clerk in the stockroom, and we both laughed like idiots. The day continued, until just after noon, just after I had eaten a great deal of the potluck dinner. As I was coming back from my break, Nicole came in the store. She was wearing a reindeer antler headband that would have looked ridiculous on anyone not smiling as much as she was. She greeted me and I asked her what her Christmas plans were.

“’Do you really want to know?’ she said.

“I told her I absolutely wanted to know, and she leaned in close. ‘I’m going to find a Christmas miracle tonight.’

“’Really?’ I said, ‘Seems like a pretty big goal.’

“’Tonight there’s going to be a Christmas miracle! I had a dream!’

“I had to admire her spirit, if nothing else. ‘I could use a miracle,’ I told her, ‘when and where is this dramatic event taking place?’

“’You don’t believe me,’ she said, frowning, ‘but I’m going to be at Staton Hills Park tonight, and I’m going to find my Christmas miracle!’

“’I’m think I’ve had my miracle of the day,” I told her, thinking about Ms. Walker staying late, ‘but I hope you find yours. In case you don’t, though, let me buy you your Snickers bar today.’

“She left the store, waving to the clerks as she did. I remember chuckling at that, as much for my appreciation of her belief than anything. At that time, I did need a miracle. I dreaded coming to work every day, I felt like I was wasting my life in a job that brought me zero joy. My personal life was a mess; I had no faith and interest in any kind of...well, any kind of anything. I was quick to be cynical and make a snarky joke about others - I was generally a miserable person. In that particular Christmas season, I think I out-Grinched the Grinch. At least on the inside.

“Shortly after that, Ms. Walker called me into the office, saying she wasn’t feeling well. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she hadn’t eaten much, just the Christmas tamales one of the pharmacy techs had brought in. She got incredibly sick and ended up going home for the day and, in fact, missing several days of work. And yes, I was concerned for her, but I was also disappointed that I would, in fact, be staying until 8:30 that night. I was silently grateful for my bland diet, which led to me skipping the tamales.

“I made it through the rest of my work day, surviving on the four different types of brownies my employees had brought in. I left the store just before 8:30, intent on going home after a fourteen-and-a-half hour day.

“As I was leaving, one of my neighbors came in and said that a pipe had burst on one of the main roads, and that I would need to take a different route home. He ran a carpet-cleaning business, and so had been called in for an emergency basement cleaning in one of the affected houses. He had also talked with one of the city guys working on the pipe fix and they said they had no idea what had caused the pipe to burst, as the weather was cold, but not THAT cold. I thanked my neighbor and headed home. At that point, I just wanted to not be around people at all.

“I drove away from work that night, and my mood got worse and worse. What else could go wrong for me? From an exhausting day of work to people not showing up to my boss getting sick to this stupid detour on my way home...no Christmas Eve plans, no Christmas cards from old friends, no mistletoe kisses, no family to celebrate Christmas morning with...what was so special about Christmas anyway? Just a holiday where you spend money you don’t have on people you don’t like for gifts they don’t want.

“I was so mired in my self-pity and anti-Christmas sentiments I hadn’t been paying attention to much else. And sure enough, as I was a little over halfway home, my car ran out of gas. Once I figured out what had happened, I got so angry at myself for letting it happen. My plan had been to buy gas and a lottery ticket on the way home, because I figured a story where a down-and-out loser won the lottery on Christmas would make for a good TV movie some time in the future. With the freak pipe burst and detour, I had forgotten all about it.

“I was about as low as I could get at that point. My head dropped against the steering wheel and I thought about everything that had gone wrong over the past few weeks – even years. I have never felt so low, never felt so alone. I prayed out loud for the first time I could remember at that moment, begging God for help, begging for a miracle. I actually said it out loud. I actually asked for a miracle.

“It was then that I remembered Nicole’s words, that a Christmas miracle would happen that night. I looked out my car window and realized that I was just one street over from Staton Hills Park. I tried to start my car, hoping against hope that ‘a car starting with no gas’ would be the miracle she had talked about. No such luck.

“I thought that maybe I could borrow Nicole’s phone to call for a ride. I locked my car and walked down the street, thinking about how ridiculous this was – trying to borrow an eleven year-old’s cell phone on Christmas Eve IF she had even been allowed out of the house for her supposed ‘miracle.’ It’s a ridiculous concept, I’ll grant you that.

“There wasn’t much to see from the street, so I went down the hill into the park. As I got nearer to the lake, I heard people talking, so I headed toward them. As you may have guessed by now, Nicole was one of those people. She was with her grandfather, Mason, who was bundled up in a wheelchair, and someone else. Nicole saw me approaching and fair to flew toward me.

“’Mr. Stephenson! You came!’ The joy on her face was a real thing. It was unguarded, unbelievable, really. ‘We’re waiting by the water for our miracle!’

“She dragged me by the arm to the other two people. I had seen her grandfather in the store a few times over the years and he greeted me as only grandfathers can. Then Nicole introduced me to the other person; her name was Mary, and she was the most beautiful woman I had ever met. I stumbled through my greeting and tried to figure out who she was in the scheme of things. Nicole saved me at that point and said that she was ‘Grandpa’s Replacement Nurse.’

“As Nicole and Mason headed closer to the water, I struck up a conversation with Mary. I learned she had moved to town a month before and just started her job. She said she was surprised that she had gotten a job as a home care nurse so quickly, claiming it as – and I’m not making this up – a miracle.

“Well, people get jobs all the time, so I didn’t really consider it an actual miracle. Then she told me she hadn’t been assigned to work that day, but got called in when Mason’s regular nurse got sick from eating some bad tamales.

“That seemed odd to me, but coincidences happen. I’m sure there are people who couldn’t be here today who don’t know each other who got sick because of similar things. It happens, right? I asked her what she had been planning on doing that night and her eyes – beautiful eyes, by the way – watered. She told me her family was still ‘back at home’ and that she was planning on calling them and watching ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ while on the phone with them after her shift ended with Mason.

“For those of you keeping track, that’s her having this particular job, on this particular night, for this particular reason, and we shared similar plans for the evening (minus the phone call on my end). I stayed at work much later than intended because of a rock concert and unexplained illness – then, because of an unexplainable pipe burst, I had to take a different route home, running out of gas one street away from a park where I knew people would be. This could all be dismissed as coincidence. Improbable, yes...but not impossible.

“What happened next, though...a man was walking through the park, singing ‘All I Want for Christmas is You.’ I remember because one of my friends has her cell phone ringtone set as that all year. He was carrying something, although we couldn’t tell what. He came up to us and said that he had been at Starbucks and they had messed up his order, giving him hot chocolates when we wanted something much fancier. He asked us if the four of us would like cups of hot chocolate for Christmas. We gratefully accepted – the man, whose name I never learned – mentioned that one of the hot chocolates was sugar-free, which was perfect for Mason’s diabetes. So...four free cups of hot chocolate, for four people, on Christmas Eve.

“As we sipped our hot chocolate – the perfect kind, mit schlag – Mary and I talked while Mason and Nicole looked for Christmas stars. And we continued to talk. When Nicole was practically asleep on Mason’s lap, we decided to go. Nicole apologized to me for not seeing a miracle and I didn’t say anything. Just as we got ready to leave, fireworks burst into the air over the lake. Some kids on the other side were trying to light up the sky to find Santa, I’m told, but for a moment, as those red and green bursts of light filled the sky, I felt it was the perfect moment in a life filled largely with imperfect moments. Nicole’s face lit up just as bright as those fireworks, and Mason called out that it was a Christmas miracle! We all hugged one another and I can’t begin to describe how right everything felt.

“Yes, there certainly was a miracle in the works that night. Not the fireworks or hot chocolate, no. As some of you have probably guessed, Mary and I started seeing one another shortly after that. We were married before the next Christmas. I’ve never met a woman like her, and I owe it all to Nicole’s belief in Christmas miracles. To her faith, which was such a large part of the events that led me to that park that night. Now, Mary couldn’t be here today, as she’s home taking care of our little twin miracles, but I know she sends her prayers to family members and close friends.

“When I got the news of Nicole’s passing, I was stunned. To think that one so young, so bright, with her entire future before her could be gone just like that...

“I’m not going to pretend to understand why Nicole had to be taken from us. If I could borrow from Kermit the Frog (with an assist from Charles Dickens), ‘Life is full of meetings and partings; that is the way of it. I am sure we shall never forget Nicole, or this first parting that there was among us.’

“I firmly believe that Nicole is heaven, probably assisting with Christmas miracles for other people, and we’ll meet again sometime, and I can thank her for the miracle that changed my life.

“Some of you may be scoffing at my talk of miracles, citing the fact that each of the individual circumstances can be easily explained. This is true; everything that happened had a rational reason behind it. All of the things that led to my meeting Mary were improbable, not impossible. But I ask you this: how many improbable events have to line up for something to be impossible, for something to be miraculous? I look at all the little events that led me to Staton Hills Park that night, and I am amazed at how many different things had to be in place in order for each of us to be there at that time. And then, once we met, the hot chocolate, the fireworks...

“The temptation to be cynical is present, I’m sure. Faith is often mocked by people who fancy themselves educated, and I understand that. I’m not asking any of you to share the belief in the miracle. I am, however, asking you to be on the lookout for your own Christmas miracle. Maybe it won’t be a big thing, perhaps something as simple as finding a stamp for your last Christmas card when you think you’ve run out, or finding an ornament you thought the dog ate, or even just realizing how lucky you are to spend Christmas with your loved ones.

“I’ll also encourage you to be a miracle for someone else – even something as simple as letting someone else have that parking spot closest to the mall entrance, or donating clothes and food to those in need. There are many, many ways that you can do something wonderful this winter. I truly hope you can be a part of a miracle yourself this year.

“Thank you for your time, and Merry Christmas.”

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was one of the best Christmas stories I have ever heard. It gave me goose bumps.

Anonymous said...

You have not posted in a while..whats up??