“You look handsome.”
Rusty Randolph’s mother used spit to try to tame his cowlick. The seven-year-old’s wild blonde hair shot toward the cold, night sky.
“C’mon MOM!” Rusty protested. It was really more than having spit used as hair product that bothered him. It was Christmas Eve and he was in the worst place possible for a kid. He was in church.
Minutes seemed like hours. Hours, well, it was just taking too darn long. His mom said they were there for the true meaning of Christmas. Rusty had yet to see Santa Claus.
Finally, a priest walked up to the front of the church and began to speak. To Rusty, he sounded like Charlie Brown’s parents. “Waa Waa Waa Waa.” But then his words came through remarkably clear, “It is better to give than receive.”
What?
It was a message that was totally lost on a seven-year-old boy.
As they finally walked out of the cathedral, Rusty looked up at the night sky. There, near the moon, was a blinking red light.
“RUDOLPH! MOM, WE HAVE TO GO HOME NOW! THERE’S RUDOLPH!!”
The passengers on the Boeing 727 above were oblivious to the little boy and his dreams of presents.
Forty years later.
“DAD! Did you fix my lunch? Russell Randolph looked around the kitchen for his oldest’s son’s brown paper lunch sack.
“I think so.”
Getting the kids out of the house in the morning was like invading France on a daily basis. D-Day was every day. And this morning they were fighting a losing battle.”
“I got my shoes on.”
Russell looked down at his seven-year-old. The kid had put his shoes on the wrong feet.
“Jesus Chr….” Russell caught himself. He knew his blood pressure must be in the Stratosphere and he didn’t want to tempt fate and a heart attack by using Jesus’ name in vain.
He reached over and flipped on the kitchen TV. War. Check. Murder. Check. Racial strife. Check. Plane Crash. Check. Terrorism. Check. Extreme weather. Check. Russell felt the acid rising in his throat. In five minutes he had gotten a quick reminder what a screwed up world his kids were inheriting.
Now he knew he’d have a heart attack.
“You seen my keys?” Russell’s wife Becky screamed from the garage. Becky taught at the local elementary school and was, once again, late.
“They are in your car.”
“Oh. Bye!”
Between their jobs and schlepping the kids around, he couldn’t remember the last time he and Becky had had a conversation other than about the kids or running the household.
“Oh, did you pay the water bill?” she yelled from the running SUV.
Russell felt a wave of stupid wash over him. “DAMMIT,” he yelled. His kids stopped and looked at him. Dad NEVER cussed.
“Let me guess, yet another thing you forgot,” Becky scolded him. Sometimes it was like she had four kids, not three. Russell slinked back into the kitchen, frustrated and defeated.
Russell’s mind had been slipping. Like the beach during a hurricane, life’s woes and problems had surged over his brain, leaving him mentally flooded.
“Um. I’ll get to it.”
He looked over at the Christmas tree that was in living room. He then looked at the credit card bills on the counter. He hated Christmas. The fuss. The expense. The stress. Even putting up the tree was a pain in the butt. Peace on Earth, goodwill to man was such a crock of bull. He was over Christmas. He flipped off the TV. The little boy from 40 years ago was no more.
It was cold, dreary December day. Russell backed out of this driveway, noted the piles of leaves and felt his chest tighten again. He headed out of the neighborhood and tried to think of everything he had to do. It was the last day of work before Christmas vacation and he was slammed. There was going to be another round of layoffs and he didn’t know if he’d survive. Everyone in the office was on edge and there wasn’t much Joy to the World at work either. He spent the next ten hours in a cubicle sitting next to fear.
He felt much older than his 47 years.
On the way home, Russell listened to the talk radio host. He normally loved the guy — who loved to give the President hell. Russell loved to get worked up on the way home every day. But Russell noticed something for the first time tonight. The man was trying to scare him. Fear was pouring out of the radio. And Russell felt afraid.
So he put on his blinker and took a sudden left. He drove across town to the cathedral where his mother had drug him 40 years ago. The car stopped in front of it and he trudged through the rain to the steps.
He stopped and refused to go in.
So he just sat there. Like Moses on the edge of the promised land, he looked at the entrance and knew he couldn’t enter. He sat in the dark as the cold rain poured down on his head. Darkness wrapped his body and soul — all except the faint multicolored light from the stained glass.
And if you had looked closed enough, you’d have noticed that rain wasn’t the only water trickling down his face.
“You’ll catch pneumonia out here, son.”
The voice sounded familiar. Russell snapped out of his pity party and looked around. His eyes could barely make out a figure walking out of the shadows holding an umbrella. “Since you don’t want to come in, I thought I’d come to you.”
Russell looked at the older man’s face. A moment of recognition jolted him. It was the priest from his childhood.
“Christmas getting you down?”
Russell nodded. “Yes, sir. And the rest of life. I can’t see anything good about the world.”
The priest laughed.
“Son, if you can’t see good in the world, be the good in the world.”
Russell was a lousy poker player. He glared at the father with a look of confusion.
“You’re almost as thick as you were when you were seven.” Russell was shock he remembered him. “Oh yes, I remember you. You had that cowlick that your mother was always trying to tame with spit.”
Russell sat up straight. He looked at the priest and started to talk. “But we live in a broken world…” The priest cut him off.
“Rusty, the world is the world. Like a stone hitting a still pond, you have a way to change it. You can change it with your actions. Those actions can be good. They can be bad. Or they can be nothing at all. You have the power but it starts here, ” the priest pointed at his heart, ” here, ” then his brain, ” but most importantly here, ” he pointed toward heaven.”
Russell looked up at the sky. The rain had stopped and the clouds began to part. A full moon and stars peeked from behind the clouds.
“Russell, be the good in people’s lives. Give them a Christmas present they’ll never forget. Like I tried to tell you so many years ago, “It’s better to give than receive.”
The priest slowly got up and started to walk back toward the darkness. “Merry Christmas Rusty.”
Russell smiled and said, “And to you, father.”
He sat for 15 more minutes and then stood up and walked into the cathedral. On a side hall, near the bathroom was a framed photo of his priest.
In memory of
Father Joseph Hurley
1935-1979
May ye rest in peace.
Russell’s jaw dropped. He stood there, stunned and staring at the man’s wizened face. He then looked around. The building was empty. No one was around.
It was at moment Rusty Randolph realized he had been given one of the greatest Christmas gifts of all.