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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Fairy Tales & Fantasy
- Subject: Seasonal / Holidays
- Published: 12/11/2018
The Gift Maker.
Born 1951, M, from Wilmington NC, United States.jpeg)
It took me almost a decade to figure out who he was. I mean it isn’t easy to piece together his story. I don’t even know how old he is. Seventy? Twenty-nine? Seventeen? I met him at each of those ages- and didn’t even know it. I have done a lot of reading on him since he first approached me all those years ago. I still don’t know how old he is, but I do know this: he is the thousands somewhere.
He is the gift maker.
*****
I first met him when I was sixteen years old. I had a crush on Debbie Morrison. Unfortunately, as often happens in High School, Debbie had a crush on Bruce Dixon. The worst night of my young life was when I tried to kiss Debbie under the mistletoe in the foyer of her house. She drew back and said:
“Shane, don’t do that. We are buddies. I think of you like the big brother I never had. Please don’t do that again. Okay?”
“Okay.”
And I didn’t.
Bruce gave me a hard time about it later.
“I heard you tried to kiss my girl. (Then he laughed at me) Silly boy. You are too nice. Girls need a bit of a bad boy…and you don’t have a bad bone in your body. Even I like you, and I’m an asshole.“
All of which, I guess…was true. Is true. Even now.
*****
I did come back over two more times that week, including Christmas Day. My attempt at becoming Don Juan Shane seemingly forgotten. Debbie asked me to go with her to see her Father. I asked her why she just didn’t have Bruce drive her over to where he lives.
“Bruce? I can’t take Bruce to see my Dad. Bruce is an asshole.”
I guess she read the question right off my face. I know I never said anything out loud.
She laughed and gave me a hug.
“Someday you will find the right girl, and she can explain it to you. Bruce isn’t the kind of guy you marry. Unless you are stupid. He is exciting, not stable. I need my friend with me to face my Dad…and you…well… you are my best friend.”
What can you say to that? It was true then. It is still true now.
It was a quiet ride over.
*****
I watched as Debbie squared her shoulders, stared at the door to her Dad’s house for a bit, then turned to me and said:
“Just stay near me. Don’t say anything. Okay?”
“I got your back. But if he gets angry, you are on your own. The best I can do is scream louder than you can.”
That got the laugh I was hoping for. Debbie took my hand, in her other hand she had a gift. A gift for her father. I had no idea what it was, because it wasn’t very big. It was nicely wrapped tho. With a gold stick on bow, green and red ribbon, and a very fancy tag that just had “Dad” written on it.
Debbie’s father was huge. I don’t mean big, I mean huge. Six and half feet tall, and carrying close to four hundred pounds on that giant frame. Sure probably eighty pounds of it is fat, but that still leaves 320 pounds of drunk muscle to contend with. I weigh 126 pounds and stand five foot three. The odds are slightly in his favor.
Her Dad didn’t answer the door. A stranger did. A kid just a bit older than Debbie and I. A good looking kid with a quick smile. He opened the door and greeted us…by name. Like you…I missed that clue.
“Hello. Merry Christmas. Do come in Debbie, and you must be Shane. We have been expecting you. Come in. Come in. Please.”
He stepped to the side with one of those sweeping bow gestures you see people give Queens, or Fancy Ladies in those old style movies. It didn’t look faked, or practiced, just a natural flowing sense of propriety…elegance meets class kind of sweeping arc. I have to admit, it was kind of flattering. Nobody ever treated me like royalty before.
Debbie must have felt the same way, because she gave him a shy head nod of thanks, like a Queen or a Fancy Lady might have given her Knight. His smile back at both of us a genuine welcome.
Debbie was quicker than me, so she spoke first:
“Who are you? How do you know our names? Where’s my Father?”
The smile dropped from the kids face. Concern brought his lips into wry twist.
“My name is Sam. I have been watching your father for the last three weeks. He is sober (and that stopped both Debbie and I, in our tracks. Her Father …sober?). He has talked about you mostly (pointing at Debbie). He mentioned you Shane, several times, saying that his daughter was lucky to have a friend like you. A friend for life.“
I didn’t know what to say to that. For once, I kept quiet. No quips. No smart remarks. No jokes. Something was going on, I could feel it. Something bigger than me. So, I stayed quiet. Like Debbie did when Sam let us in the door, I just gave him a nod. Debbie grew very wary…stopping in the hallway we were walking down, forcing Sam to stop and turn to look at us again.
“My Father has been talking to you…about me?’
“Oh. Oh, yes. Almost constantly. He loves you, you know?”
I didn’t understand girls then, and I don’t understand them now. Debbie burst into tears. I could see her hand tighten on the gift she brought. I could see the hope in her eyes warring with her fears. She loved her father. He was a good man until he started drinking. She still had good memories of those first six or seven years. After that…well, not all wounds are physical.
“He…he…he told you that?”
Sam nodded solemnly.
“Why?”
“Because I asked him if he ever loved anybody. He said, "Yes. My Daughter.”
Debbie cried again. We both hugged her. She sort of sagged against both of us.
After a while…she took the handkerchief I handed her (saying thanks with her eyes), wiped her face, blew her nose, regained her composure enough to ask yet another question.
“Why are you here?”
“Me? I am his sponsor. Have been for the last year. I am an Alcoholic.“
You could have knocked both Debbie and I over with a feather. Heck, a puff of air would have done it.
This time is was Sam who had the shy wry smile on his face.
“Alcohol is no respecter of age. I was eleven when I started drinking. When I was fifteen I stole a car. I crashed into another car. Luckily, nobody was hurt. But in that other car were three little kids. The look on their faces…fear, shock, disgust (he shrugged his shoulders), well, I got sober that night in jail. I almost killed three little kids. Just luck saved me.
So I stayed sober. I did really well in the program. I am still a minor…but they assigned me your Dad. He came to our meeting last Christmas…and said he had just embarrassed the only person he ever truly loved, in front of her Mother, her friends, and her family. They had to call 911 to remove him.“
Neither Debbie, nor I, needed the details. We were both there. It was the ugliest scene I had ever seen in my young life. And it was just last Christmas Eve. I could still hear his voice as he called Debbie a: “little Slut”, and her Mother: ”a whore.” He was still yelling obscenities as they dragged him through the snow to the Patrol Car. It took a long time for Christmas to seep back in.
“Your Dad came to our meeting on Christmas Day. He told us what he had done, what he had said, and then…he cried. (Debbie’s face hardened a bit at this last tidbit) We held him. Told him about the program…he has never missed a meeting. And…he has been sober for exactly one year. I came here tonight to give him his medallion. It was a gift he made for himself.”
And that was that.
*****
Debbie and I went into the small Den that used to be her Father’s Office back when she was a child. Her Father was standing next to the fire place. He was still huge. But all the fat was gone. So was most of the muscle. He still weighed well over two hundred pounds, but hung on his six foot six frame, that weight clung like a suit two sizes too big. He wasn’t gaunt exactly, more like withered.
His first words to Debbie were:
“I am so glad you came Honey. I love you. I was a lousy Dad for a long time. Can you forgive me?"
I guess she could. Because she ran to him. He swept her up in those big long arms of his- and, well, you can guess the rest. Sam tapped me on the shoulder, pointed to the door, and led me out to the kitchen. We ate pumpkin pie, talked about many things, and waited for Debbie and her Father to come out to join us.
They did.
Four hours later.
I never saw Sam again.
Until...
*****
I met him again when I was twenty nine years old.
He was Seventy years old if he was a day. Spry, thin, white wisps of hair clinging stubbornly just above his ears, but no where else on his head. Well, except for his eyebrows. Eyebrows that would have made a Russian Dictator proud.
My Mother-in-Law had been a widow for more than five years. It had been a hard five years. Brittney (my wife, and her daughter) had tried to help ease her grief, as did her other six children. It didn’t work. Her Mom and Dad had one of those relationships…you know, where they meet in High School and you just know they will be married forever. Jim had been the only man she had ever been with. She had been the only woman Jim had been with.
Even when he was over in that jungle at just nineteen years of age, he was never tempted to be with anyone but her. He left a leg over there in some godforsaken rice patty, but his heart was whole, and it belonged to her. Somehow they made it through that too.
I laughed the first time Jim told us about how at Trippler Army Hospital in Hawaii, he hopped on one leg down the amputee block, looking for a “lefty”, so they could buy shoes. Jim still had his right leg, he needed someone who had a left leg so they could share shoes. That is how he met DeWayne. DeWayne was a lefty, size nine. They stayed friends for life.
Every Christmas, they sent each other a shoe. It was as charming, as it was hilarious. It was the one gift that made Shelly smile, even after Jim died, DeWayne sent a shoe every Christmas. She would open the box, laugh, hug the shoe, and cry. Then after Christmas was over, she would put that shoe along side the other ones DeWayne sent since Jim died. Like a closet shrine.
My Mother-in- Law ( Shelly) put up a brave front. But that is all it was. She missed Jim something fierce. She had lost weight, a lot of weight. She still interacted with family, but not other people. The only time I saw her angry, I mean really angry, was when Sylvia (her eldest daughter) and Stephen (her eldest son) tried to enroll her in that Widow Grief Club. Mom (which is what I called her, and still do. She earned it.) was livid.
“I don’t want another man (true). I am doing fine (no she wasn’t). I don’t need any help (not true). Stop interfering with my life! (which, they did).”
Brittney and I had called Mom to see if she wanted to go out to dinner with us Christmas week. You could have knocked Brittney and I over with a feather, heck, a puff of air, when she said:
“I can’t on Wednesday. I have a Swing Class that Sam is taking me to. But I could make it on Thursday.”
“Sam who?”
You would have thought Brittney and I rehearsed saying that…since we said it at the same time, with the same tone of incredulous surprise.
It made Mom laugh.
“Sam. I saw him do a dance routine at the Mall a few months back. Everyone else in the group was in their late twenties. Same is seventy one. The same age Jim would have been if he was still alive.“
Now Brittney cried. I had to turn the phone away from her so her Mom wouldn’t hear her sobbing. I could barely hold back my own tears. In five years I had never heard Mom say Jim’s name without her voice cracking with grief, loss, loneliness. This time, her voice was matter of fact.
“I complimented him on keeping up with the youngsters. We had a cup of coffee there in the Mall. He convinced me to come to their free Swing lessons at the Old USO building every Wednesday. So I went. It has been fun.”
Brittney was beaming from ear to ear. I must have looked like a cow hit with a hammer.
“So Mom, (Brittney asked with a giant smile in every word) what’s this Sam like?"
“Oh, he is my age. Thin, but not too thin. Quite the dapper dresser too. I like him. He is filled with life, has a quick smile like your Shane. Tomorrow he has someone he wants me to meet.“
Brittney was much quicker on the uptake than me. She knew right away that Sam was to her Mother, what I was to Debbie. (Who was my Best Man at Brittney's and my wedding…screw tradition. Debbie is my Best Friend. So there.)
“Mom! Are you going on a Date?”
I swear Shelly laughed so hard she could hardly breathe. I hadn’t heard my Mother in Law laugh in five years, except when DeWayne sent that shoe every Christmas. Believe me, that laugh was as far from this laugh as my checking account is from Warren Buffet's. I didn’t want it to stop. But even Mother in Law’s have to breathe sometime.
Brittney was holding me so tight that my back actually cracked. I didn’t care. I felt like she did…like I was witnessing a miracle. Her mother was laughing. Laughing!
“No, silly. Sam wants to meet this guy as a prospective dance partner. Sam thinks we would make a lovely Dance couple.”
That was true. We know. Because we took her Sam, and Fred to dinner Christmas week. Sam brought them together that first night, and well, they haven’t been apart since. Fred we see quite often- Sam we haven’t seen since Christmas.
I didn’t get those clues either.
Until…
*****
I was eighty four when I met “Sam” again. I had only been dead a few hours. Brittney had died just four days earlier. And well, I didn’t want to live anymore…so I didn’t.
And there he was. Same features he had at seventeen, at seventy, and whatever other ages he chose to put on for that particular Christmas. I knew it was him. So I told him:
“You are Sam!”
He nodded with that shy smile he seemed to wear like some folks wear old slippers…comfortable with no apology.
“But how can that be? I am dead!”
He nodded. Not agreeing with me, just acknowledging the fact.
“Well, you see Shane, it is time for me to train my replacement. You.”
You don’t even have to go look for a feather, or a puff of air, I knocked myself over. Pretty doggone hard to do when your body is laying in a morgue and you are floating…well…somewhere.
Sam laughed.
“It’s okay. I have been doing this for a long long time. As you will soon know. Because I shall show you every Christmas I worked.”
My head hurt for a second. It was being crammed with visions: a goat to a family in Africa, a new net to a fisherman in Oceania, a shared coffee to two men in France during the Revolution, a gift of bear meat on the Frontier to an older widow and her three children…a new home for an orphan. The list was long indeed. Almost a thousand Christmas’s.
And every single one had a special meaning to the folks involved. A new love. An old love. A repaired love. A new friend. An old friend. A repaired friendship. Forgiveness, hope, kindness…shared as Christmas gifts for eons. It was remarkable. It left my head spinning with joyful recall.
“Wow!” Was the best I could manage.
“I know.” Said Sam.
“Am I supposed to do those things too?”
“In a way. You are supposed to learn from me. But you will have to find your own way to bring those Special Christmas’s to people. You will. I did.“
“But what if I can’t? I am not like you. I don’t know how to make people’s lives better, fuller, richer.”
Sam waggled a finger at me.
“Oh yes you do. Why do you think I chose you. You will be the next of our kind.”
“What kind are we talking here?”
“A gift giver.“
“Me?”
“Yes. You gave the gift of friendship to Debbie, even though you wanted her for yourself. You gave Brittney the gift of your love for sixty years…so much so that when she died, you left a few days later. You gave your Mother in Law the gift of a loving son, and helped make her a Grandmother too. You took the high road in every personal relationship you ever had.
You even forgave Debbie’s Father for being a drunk for all those years. You gave when it hurt. That is why you will be the next Gift Maker.”
“When do we start?”
“Now.”
The snow as falling. I wasn’t cold. But the young mother hiding in the barn with her newborn was. I don’t know where the blankets, the small basket of food, and the water came from, but I had them all.
She was scared when I came in the barn. The food made her overcome her fear. I held the baby while she wrapped a blanket around herself and opened the basket to take out a pear. She bit in to it - trying to hide her hunger by taking a small bite. She tried to hide her hope and her fear - flashing in turns behind her eyes.
“Who are you?”
“Sam.”
A light went on in the house, then one on the porch. A big man came out holding a lantern. The woman snatched her baby back from me, almost dropping the pear.
“We have to hide. Whoever owns this barn is coming. He will kick us out.“
She was like a wild animal, ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. I pulled a bit of blanket around her shoulders as she relaxed just a tiny bit with my concern.
“No he won’t. His name is Benjamin. You will call him Benny.”
Her eyes widened in the dark as the man with the Lantern walked toward the barn and the future for all three of them.
“How do you know?”
I smiled.
“I am Sam. I am the gift maker."
The Gift Maker.(Kevin Hughes)
It took me almost a decade to figure out who he was. I mean it isn’t easy to piece together his story. I don’t even know how old he is. Seventy? Twenty-nine? Seventeen? I met him at each of those ages- and didn’t even know it. I have done a lot of reading on him since he first approached me all those years ago. I still don’t know how old he is, but I do know this: he is the thousands somewhere.
He is the gift maker.
*****
I first met him when I was sixteen years old. I had a crush on Debbie Morrison. Unfortunately, as often happens in High School, Debbie had a crush on Bruce Dixon. The worst night of my young life was when I tried to kiss Debbie under the mistletoe in the foyer of her house. She drew back and said:
“Shane, don’t do that. We are buddies. I think of you like the big brother I never had. Please don’t do that again. Okay?”
“Okay.”
And I didn’t.
Bruce gave me a hard time about it later.
“I heard you tried to kiss my girl. (Then he laughed at me) Silly boy. You are too nice. Girls need a bit of a bad boy…and you don’t have a bad bone in your body. Even I like you, and I’m an asshole.“
All of which, I guess…was true. Is true. Even now.
*****
I did come back over two more times that week, including Christmas Day. My attempt at becoming Don Juan Shane seemingly forgotten. Debbie asked me to go with her to see her Father. I asked her why she just didn’t have Bruce drive her over to where he lives.
“Bruce? I can’t take Bruce to see my Dad. Bruce is an asshole.”
I guess she read the question right off my face. I know I never said anything out loud.
She laughed and gave me a hug.
“Someday you will find the right girl, and she can explain it to you. Bruce isn’t the kind of guy you marry. Unless you are stupid. He is exciting, not stable. I need my friend with me to face my Dad…and you…well… you are my best friend.”
What can you say to that? It was true then. It is still true now.
It was a quiet ride over.
*****
I watched as Debbie squared her shoulders, stared at the door to her Dad’s house for a bit, then turned to me and said:
“Just stay near me. Don’t say anything. Okay?”
“I got your back. But if he gets angry, you are on your own. The best I can do is scream louder than you can.”
That got the laugh I was hoping for. Debbie took my hand, in her other hand she had a gift. A gift for her father. I had no idea what it was, because it wasn’t very big. It was nicely wrapped tho. With a gold stick on bow, green and red ribbon, and a very fancy tag that just had “Dad” written on it.
Debbie’s father was huge. I don’t mean big, I mean huge. Six and half feet tall, and carrying close to four hundred pounds on that giant frame. Sure probably eighty pounds of it is fat, but that still leaves 320 pounds of drunk muscle to contend with. I weigh 126 pounds and stand five foot three. The odds are slightly in his favor.
Her Dad didn’t answer the door. A stranger did. A kid just a bit older than Debbie and I. A good looking kid with a quick smile. He opened the door and greeted us…by name. Like you…I missed that clue.
“Hello. Merry Christmas. Do come in Debbie, and you must be Shane. We have been expecting you. Come in. Come in. Please.”
He stepped to the side with one of those sweeping bow gestures you see people give Queens, or Fancy Ladies in those old style movies. It didn’t look faked, or practiced, just a natural flowing sense of propriety…elegance meets class kind of sweeping arc. I have to admit, it was kind of flattering. Nobody ever treated me like royalty before.
Debbie must have felt the same way, because she gave him a shy head nod of thanks, like a Queen or a Fancy Lady might have given her Knight. His smile back at both of us a genuine welcome.
Debbie was quicker than me, so she spoke first:
“Who are you? How do you know our names? Where’s my Father?”
The smile dropped from the kids face. Concern brought his lips into wry twist.
“My name is Sam. I have been watching your father for the last three weeks. He is sober (and that stopped both Debbie and I, in our tracks. Her Father …sober?). He has talked about you mostly (pointing at Debbie). He mentioned you Shane, several times, saying that his daughter was lucky to have a friend like you. A friend for life.“
I didn’t know what to say to that. For once, I kept quiet. No quips. No smart remarks. No jokes. Something was going on, I could feel it. Something bigger than me. So, I stayed quiet. Like Debbie did when Sam let us in the door, I just gave him a nod. Debbie grew very wary…stopping in the hallway we were walking down, forcing Sam to stop and turn to look at us again.
“My Father has been talking to you…about me?’
“Oh. Oh, yes. Almost constantly. He loves you, you know?”
I didn’t understand girls then, and I don’t understand them now. Debbie burst into tears. I could see her hand tighten on the gift she brought. I could see the hope in her eyes warring with her fears. She loved her father. He was a good man until he started drinking. She still had good memories of those first six or seven years. After that…well, not all wounds are physical.
“He…he…he told you that?”
Sam nodded solemnly.
“Why?”
“Because I asked him if he ever loved anybody. He said, "Yes. My Daughter.”
Debbie cried again. We both hugged her. She sort of sagged against both of us.
After a while…she took the handkerchief I handed her (saying thanks with her eyes), wiped her face, blew her nose, regained her composure enough to ask yet another question.
“Why are you here?”
“Me? I am his sponsor. Have been for the last year. I am an Alcoholic.“
You could have knocked both Debbie and I over with a feather. Heck, a puff of air would have done it.
This time is was Sam who had the shy wry smile on his face.
“Alcohol is no respecter of age. I was eleven when I started drinking. When I was fifteen I stole a car. I crashed into another car. Luckily, nobody was hurt. But in that other car were three little kids. The look on their faces…fear, shock, disgust (he shrugged his shoulders), well, I got sober that night in jail. I almost killed three little kids. Just luck saved me.
So I stayed sober. I did really well in the program. I am still a minor…but they assigned me your Dad. He came to our meeting last Christmas…and said he had just embarrassed the only person he ever truly loved, in front of her Mother, her friends, and her family. They had to call 911 to remove him.“
Neither Debbie, nor I, needed the details. We were both there. It was the ugliest scene I had ever seen in my young life. And it was just last Christmas Eve. I could still hear his voice as he called Debbie a: “little Slut”, and her Mother: ”a whore.” He was still yelling obscenities as they dragged him through the snow to the Patrol Car. It took a long time for Christmas to seep back in.
“Your Dad came to our meeting on Christmas Day. He told us what he had done, what he had said, and then…he cried. (Debbie’s face hardened a bit at this last tidbit) We held him. Told him about the program…he has never missed a meeting. And…he has been sober for exactly one year. I came here tonight to give him his medallion. It was a gift he made for himself.”
And that was that.
*****
Debbie and I went into the small Den that used to be her Father’s Office back when she was a child. Her Father was standing next to the fire place. He was still huge. But all the fat was gone. So was most of the muscle. He still weighed well over two hundred pounds, but hung on his six foot six frame, that weight clung like a suit two sizes too big. He wasn’t gaunt exactly, more like withered.
His first words to Debbie were:
“I am so glad you came Honey. I love you. I was a lousy Dad for a long time. Can you forgive me?"
I guess she could. Because she ran to him. He swept her up in those big long arms of his- and, well, you can guess the rest. Sam tapped me on the shoulder, pointed to the door, and led me out to the kitchen. We ate pumpkin pie, talked about many things, and waited for Debbie and her Father to come out to join us.
They did.
Four hours later.
I never saw Sam again.
Until...
*****
I met him again when I was twenty nine years old.
He was Seventy years old if he was a day. Spry, thin, white wisps of hair clinging stubbornly just above his ears, but no where else on his head. Well, except for his eyebrows. Eyebrows that would have made a Russian Dictator proud.
My Mother-in-Law had been a widow for more than five years. It had been a hard five years. Brittney (my wife, and her daughter) had tried to help ease her grief, as did her other six children. It didn’t work. Her Mom and Dad had one of those relationships…you know, where they meet in High School and you just know they will be married forever. Jim had been the only man she had ever been with. She had been the only woman Jim had been with.
Even when he was over in that jungle at just nineteen years of age, he was never tempted to be with anyone but her. He left a leg over there in some godforsaken rice patty, but his heart was whole, and it belonged to her. Somehow they made it through that too.
I laughed the first time Jim told us about how at Trippler Army Hospital in Hawaii, he hopped on one leg down the amputee block, looking for a “lefty”, so they could buy shoes. Jim still had his right leg, he needed someone who had a left leg so they could share shoes. That is how he met DeWayne. DeWayne was a lefty, size nine. They stayed friends for life.
Every Christmas, they sent each other a shoe. It was as charming, as it was hilarious. It was the one gift that made Shelly smile, even after Jim died, DeWayne sent a shoe every Christmas. She would open the box, laugh, hug the shoe, and cry. Then after Christmas was over, she would put that shoe along side the other ones DeWayne sent since Jim died. Like a closet shrine.
My Mother-in- Law ( Shelly) put up a brave front. But that is all it was. She missed Jim something fierce. She had lost weight, a lot of weight. She still interacted with family, but not other people. The only time I saw her angry, I mean really angry, was when Sylvia (her eldest daughter) and Stephen (her eldest son) tried to enroll her in that Widow Grief Club. Mom (which is what I called her, and still do. She earned it.) was livid.
“I don’t want another man (true). I am doing fine (no she wasn’t). I don’t need any help (not true). Stop interfering with my life! (which, they did).”
Brittney and I had called Mom to see if she wanted to go out to dinner with us Christmas week. You could have knocked Brittney and I over with a feather, heck, a puff of air, when she said:
“I can’t on Wednesday. I have a Swing Class that Sam is taking me to. But I could make it on Thursday.”
“Sam who?”
You would have thought Brittney and I rehearsed saying that…since we said it at the same time, with the same tone of incredulous surprise.
It made Mom laugh.
“Sam. I saw him do a dance routine at the Mall a few months back. Everyone else in the group was in their late twenties. Same is seventy one. The same age Jim would have been if he was still alive.“
Now Brittney cried. I had to turn the phone away from her so her Mom wouldn’t hear her sobbing. I could barely hold back my own tears. In five years I had never heard Mom say Jim’s name without her voice cracking with grief, loss, loneliness. This time, her voice was matter of fact.
“I complimented him on keeping up with the youngsters. We had a cup of coffee there in the Mall. He convinced me to come to their free Swing lessons at the Old USO building every Wednesday. So I went. It has been fun.”
Brittney was beaming from ear to ear. I must have looked like a cow hit with a hammer.
“So Mom, (Brittney asked with a giant smile in every word) what’s this Sam like?"
“Oh, he is my age. Thin, but not too thin. Quite the dapper dresser too. I like him. He is filled with life, has a quick smile like your Shane. Tomorrow he has someone he wants me to meet.“
Brittney was much quicker on the uptake than me. She knew right away that Sam was to her Mother, what I was to Debbie. (Who was my Best Man at Brittney's and my wedding…screw tradition. Debbie is my Best Friend. So there.)
“Mom! Are you going on a Date?”
I swear Shelly laughed so hard she could hardly breathe. I hadn’t heard my Mother in Law laugh in five years, except when DeWayne sent that shoe every Christmas. Believe me, that laugh was as far from this laugh as my checking account is from Warren Buffet's. I didn’t want it to stop. But even Mother in Law’s have to breathe sometime.
Brittney was holding me so tight that my back actually cracked. I didn’t care. I felt like she did…like I was witnessing a miracle. Her mother was laughing. Laughing!
“No, silly. Sam wants to meet this guy as a prospective dance partner. Sam thinks we would make a lovely Dance couple.”
That was true. We know. Because we took her Sam, and Fred to dinner Christmas week. Sam brought them together that first night, and well, they haven’t been apart since. Fred we see quite often- Sam we haven’t seen since Christmas.
I didn’t get those clues either.
Until…
*****
I was eighty four when I met “Sam” again. I had only been dead a few hours. Brittney had died just four days earlier. And well, I didn’t want to live anymore…so I didn’t.
And there he was. Same features he had at seventeen, at seventy, and whatever other ages he chose to put on for that particular Christmas. I knew it was him. So I told him:
“You are Sam!”
He nodded with that shy smile he seemed to wear like some folks wear old slippers…comfortable with no apology.
“But how can that be? I am dead!”
He nodded. Not agreeing with me, just acknowledging the fact.
“Well, you see Shane, it is time for me to train my replacement. You.”
You don’t even have to go look for a feather, or a puff of air, I knocked myself over. Pretty doggone hard to do when your body is laying in a morgue and you are floating…well…somewhere.
Sam laughed.
“It’s okay. I have been doing this for a long long time. As you will soon know. Because I shall show you every Christmas I worked.”
My head hurt for a second. It was being crammed with visions: a goat to a family in Africa, a new net to a fisherman in Oceania, a shared coffee to two men in France during the Revolution, a gift of bear meat on the Frontier to an older widow and her three children…a new home for an orphan. The list was long indeed. Almost a thousand Christmas’s.
And every single one had a special meaning to the folks involved. A new love. An old love. A repaired love. A new friend. An old friend. A repaired friendship. Forgiveness, hope, kindness…shared as Christmas gifts for eons. It was remarkable. It left my head spinning with joyful recall.
“Wow!” Was the best I could manage.
“I know.” Said Sam.
“Am I supposed to do those things too?”
“In a way. You are supposed to learn from me. But you will have to find your own way to bring those Special Christmas’s to people. You will. I did.“
“But what if I can’t? I am not like you. I don’t know how to make people’s lives better, fuller, richer.”
Sam waggled a finger at me.
“Oh yes you do. Why do you think I chose you. You will be the next of our kind.”
“What kind are we talking here?”
“A gift giver.“
“Me?”
“Yes. You gave the gift of friendship to Debbie, even though you wanted her for yourself. You gave Brittney the gift of your love for sixty years…so much so that when she died, you left a few days later. You gave your Mother in Law the gift of a loving son, and helped make her a Grandmother too. You took the high road in every personal relationship you ever had.
You even forgave Debbie’s Father for being a drunk for all those years. You gave when it hurt. That is why you will be the next Gift Maker.”
“When do we start?”
“Now.”
The snow as falling. I wasn’t cold. But the young mother hiding in the barn with her newborn was. I don’t know where the blankets, the small basket of food, and the water came from, but I had them all.
She was scared when I came in the barn. The food made her overcome her fear. I held the baby while she wrapped a blanket around herself and opened the basket to take out a pear. She bit in to it - trying to hide her hunger by taking a small bite. She tried to hide her hope and her fear - flashing in turns behind her eyes.
“Who are you?”
“Sam.”
A light went on in the house, then one on the porch. A big man came out holding a lantern. The woman snatched her baby back from me, almost dropping the pear.
“We have to hide. Whoever owns this barn is coming. He will kick us out.“
She was like a wild animal, ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. I pulled a bit of blanket around her shoulders as she relaxed just a tiny bit with my concern.
“No he won’t. His name is Benjamin. You will call him Benny.”
Her eyes widened in the dark as the man with the Lantern walked toward the barn and the future for all three of them.
“How do you know?”
I smiled.
“I am Sam. I am the gift maker."
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JD
12/14/2018The world needs lots more 'gift makers'! I'm glad to know of just two of them. Lovely inspirational story, Kevin! thank U for sharing it with us! :-)
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Kevin Hughes
12/14/2018Hey Jd,
I agree- more gift makers would be a good gift. LOL Thanks for your constant support.
Smiles, Kevin
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