Warmth On A Bitterly Cold Christmas

This photo of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller center is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

I told Derek about my experience and surprisingly he had seen a child panhandling himself. He wondered out loud, if this was the same child. Once again, I blew this off, and continued on with our lives, I know how that sounds. I thought this would go away as other abominations in our lives had vanished. I was wrong for not acting immediately, and it took my son nineteen at the time to bring this to my attention. But he more than made up for my lapse that Christmas season, apparently he had learned that if there is no one to help then it's up to an individual.

We were preparing the house for the season, lights in the window, decorations on the door. We were reliving our first Christmas alone together. It would be a very good holiday for us that year. My son and I would be alone with the occasional guest as Derek's brother Rob moved away so that he could pursue his career and his life. We missed him, but we could only be happy for him as he seemed to be doing well.

I came into the house one day and Derek was with a friend, but I was a little concerned because this child seemed to be a bit young to hang out with my youngest who was a first year college student. Then it came to me that this was the boy that I met at our supermarket door panhandling. I asked Derek for an explanation and he replied...

"I went to the store and this kid was there asking for money, so I invited him home with me to play video games." "I figured you would know what to do about this." Of course, I had no idea of what we should do about the entire mess. I was not, after all, a social worker, and it seemed we could use one at this juncture. It was obvious I had to take the kid home and meet his parents, something I dreaded. They didn't seem to have a problem with their child being on the street panhandling! We set out for the address the kid gave us, hopefully we would get some closure now.

I suppose I should explain that the area I reside in is multi-faceted and people of all types live here. They range from destitute to fabulously wealthy. It is very much like Manhattan in that respect. Large expensive homes compete with really shabby abodes for real estate. We are all living by the sea in a fairly hard town. It only applies to this neighborhood which is called Oceanview. The rest of the city is divided as are most cities in the US. So we were headed to a cheap motel in this neighborhood that was across a street from homes ranging in price from a half a million to two million dollars. Like I said multi-faceted.

We encountered a mother and a father with a 8 or 9 year old little girl. We explained what their son had been doing. They took the information with good grace. Then the father tried to give us the 'brush off', so I didn't need a house to fall on me, I felt it was time to make our exit. Before we could get out of the door however, Derek asked if we could help them in any possible way to get them to a better situation. He learned his lessons well, and I always told him to help in cases where he could see help was needed. The mother spoke this time.

She told us to forgive her husband for being so brusque but they were having a hard time. I started to think, I used to volunteer for Habitats For Humanity in Colorado and they had a ledger that listed all of the agencies that were willing to help those in need. I knew that in Virginia the list would be short, this is a conservative state, that usually means no helping hand will be forthcoming. Still, there were a few places that I knew of from the time I spent volunteering in Virginia.

Without going into detail, we were able to direct this family to some help. There were churches and a few state agencies that helped along the way. Turns out the father had been working at the local ship yard and was out of work due to a shortage of signed contracts. He would probably get his job back, and he was collecting unemployment insurance but it wasn't enough. He and his family would surely go under if they didn't get help. Christmas was a fading memory as they could not provide necessities for themselves and their children. The good that came of this was that they got Christmas presents, and help with lodging and the other necessities of life. They were helped in ways that neither my son nor I could have gotten close to accomplishing. We only had to make a few phone calls.

Derek was happy and I certainly was satisfied, it made our holiday somehow better. We knew that this family would be fine, and while not much it was a lot better than nothing. The family tried to thank us, but we felt embarrassed accepting thanks for something we didn't accomplish. We only pointed them in the right direction. It was something anyone could have done and achieved the same result.

The good feelings generated by that little bit of work lasted us until now, and we still think of the events with a renewed kind of faith. Faith in the good that most people possess, and we know miracles do happen.

Christmas cactus courtesy of André aka Aka licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license via Wikipedia.

We went to visit this family on Christmas day in their newly acquired apartment. It was evening and it was starting to snow, pretty hard actually. Snow is not something we get a lot, so I was delighted. The couple's children had opened their gifts hours ago, but they stopped playing long enough to show Derek and I what they got. Surprisingly they had some pretty good stuff and even their parents had received gifts courtesy of the members of one of the local churches that provided the help. We took some of my baked goods over as I always overdo the desserts and had plenty to go around.

That Christmas was one of our best together, even though we hadn't done a thing we had a sense of accomplishment. This one family utilizing information that we could give them had brought them to a better place in life. Their son was no longer panhandling and I could see that this was a loving family that could have fallen victim to economic problems that they had no part in starting. They would be alright as they now had a small network of people to help should they need help again. They spoke of getting to a place in life where they would help others, as these various organizations had helped in their situation. I think that is the way people sometimes come full circle and later they would 'pay it forward' as people like to say now, using the title of the movie as part of our language. The people that actually provided the help they needed would not benefit from this any other way than the feelings that one will get as they help their fellow man.

We sat and talked and they even got their daughter to sing us a few Christmas carols. I got a smile from that as I think of all of the occasions that Derek would get requests from me to play violin for our guests. It was snowing outside so we said our goodbyes and started to walk home. (The neighborhood is easy to walk and has sidewalks) We talked and I realize that this had been a positive experience for Derek and something he would always remember. I got a good feeling from that thought and once again thought about these events and our small part in this story. We both knew that was the way people should function in general. Try to help all year long, don't wait for holidays. We walked into our home and finished our holiday together. Snow was falling and everything was turning white and as it wasn't midnight, it was still Christmas day. So we had our white Christmas, sort of, and we were happy.

I hope you got some cheer from reading a story that has a happy ending. May you all have a Merry Christmas, and a prosperous and Happy New Year.