Christmas Angels Among Us

I’m more superstitious than skeptical, more susceptible to believe than cynical. And what with it being Christmas and all, everything can be taken as a sign or symbol of something or other. I can turn a simple offering of a Christmas cookie into a sign that, clearly, I should become the next Iron Chef even though, several days ago, I almost set the house on fire when I left something in the microwave too long. Many of the things I decide are “signs” are obviously just me looking for confirmation that I should buckle down and do whatever I’ve been thinking about doing, or commit to some course of action that I’ve been putting off. Then there are the signs that knock your socks off. Which is why I believe my Dad found a way to say hello to me on Christmas Eve.

We spent the weekend before Christmas in Cincinnati visiting family and friends. When we got back, there was a message from the coordinator of the Childrens’ Services Toy Room asking if I could volunteer Christmas Eve morning. I didn’t call back right away because I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend one of my days off feeling equal parts sad and angry about the poverty in Akron. Instead of volunteering, I could lounge around in my flannel PJs, work on my annual “Top 10 Books” list (coming soon!), shop for super-duper deals, and generally spoil myself (and the girls). My list of reasons to stay home was quite long, especially given that gale-force winds were blowing still-full garbage cans down our street.  Selfish? Damn straight. Sometimes a girl needs to say no. At least that’s what all the self-help books say about putting everyone’s needs before yours. What I wanted and needed was a little R&R.

But as I drank my coffee, I kept hearing a voice saying “go, go, go, you should go.” For those of us who know me, you know this voice might have been named Catholic Guilt. This voice sometimes reminds me that there are starving children in China and Africa and America, always a go-to phrase used by the nuns who were tired of us whining about the disgusting taste of pizza burgers in the school cafeteria (at least we had pizza burgers to whine about, was the theory). There are also people without roofs over their heads, people who have no heat, people who don’t know where their next meal will come from, and people who … you get the point. All these societal ills and more were reasons to feel not-so-great about sitting under a warm blanket sipping a cup of fair trade coffee in a warm house with two warm dogs beside me. But the voice I was hearing didn’t seem to be coming from my good friend Catholic Guilt. It seemed to bubble up from another unnamed source. I listened to Leslie’s voicemail again. It was already 7:30 a.m. She needed help from 9 a.m. to noon, they were expecting a lot of last-minute shoppers, just like every retail store in the country. I said “okay” quietly and peeled myself off the sofa.

The Toy Room was hopping all morning. We stuffed Dora dolls, Bratz dolls, Barbie dolls, Lego sets, Candyland, Cranium, Little Tikes bikes, acoustic guitars and more into plastic sacks for kids who would otherwise not be visited by Santa. Several social workers shopped on behalf of their clients who couldn’t make it in for various reasons, opting to spend their day off in continued service to others. Time passed quickly, and it was already noon when I walked a woman out to her car with four overstuffed bags for her two kids. The folks from Childrens Services were itching to close up shop but a client called to say she’d gotten lost and was on her way. One of the board members asked me if I could stay a little longer so a few of the Children Services employees could go home to their families. Sure, I said. I was glad I had decided to come out, and what was another few minutes now that I was already there?

I saw a woman helping an older man out of an even older white car. He walked very slowly with the help of a cane and the steady support of the woman’s arm. His back was bent so much that his head faced the ground, and I couldn’t see his face. As they made their way across the parking lot, I finished up with another shopper in the Free Room where we loaded up on crayons and books and stuffed animals. The board member poked his head in to say the final shopper was finally here, and she was waiting for her father to finish up in the restroom; then she’d be ready to go. 

I found the woman waiting near the restroom door. She looked and acted like Suzi Quatro (aka Pinky Tuscadero from Happy Days). Her hair was styled like Pinky’s and there was a streetwise hardness to her, with the surprising exception of the delicate silver cross earrings she wore. I was waiting for her to slap her thighs and snap her fingers like Pinky did. She apologized for getting lost and thanked me a thousand times over for staying open. She even winked when she thanked me, just like Pinky would have. Her father had helped her find the way; they had been driving for more than an hour and if it weren’t for him she’d still be driving around looking for the Toy Room.

She went on to say that she had never in her life thought she’d be here but, without this, her 10-year-old daughter would have nothing for Christmas. Absolutely nothing. Basically, the bottom had fallen out all at once. She was recently divorced and her husband was not paying child support. And her father, who was still in the restroom, had lung cancer and some sort of spinal disease that was crippling him, thus the reason he couldn’t stand straight. She was caring for him in their cramped apartment. Oh, and just to add salt to their already burning wounds, they had just lost their dog and an uncle who had been helping them out.

She said all of this with a smile and told me that despite the loss, the divorce, and her father’s illness, she tried to keep a positive outlook, and was so grateful that the Toy Room would help give Amanda a Christmas after all. My daughter is everything to me, she said.

When her father finally emerged from the restroom, he lifted his head as much as he could and smiled at me. I nearly burst into tears right there. It was exactly my Dad’s smile, right down to the mischievous twinkle in this man’s hazel — yes, the same color as my dad’s –eyes. I was so stricken I had to excuse myself. I left both of them standing in the hallway and went into the volunteer breakroom to compose myself. I was crying, not little tears but huge streams running down my face. I wasn’t sobbing but the tears wouldn’t stop. My heart had sprung a leak. Someone peeked in and asked if I was okay. “Yes,” I said. ”Just getting some water for the older man out there.” I poured some water and grabbed a sugar cookie for him.

By the time I returned, he was sitting in the chair in the lobby and the woman taking her own turn in the restroom. I thought maybe I was just seeing things, that if I approached him again, I’d see that it wasn’t my dad’s smile I had seen. It was just my overactive imagination wishing that dad could still be with us for Christmas. I handed him the water and the cookie, and again, he looked at me and smiled. He didn’t speak, just smiled, and, to me, it felt like an other-worldly smile meant just for me. I can’t even tell you if there were other people in the room. But what I can tell you is that I couldn’t take my eyes off his smile and I didn’t want to leave its presence. It held me there until I soaked enough of it up and he looked down at the cookie I guess I had actually handed to him. Again, I had to suck back the tears so I could help shop for Amanda. Which I did. She got a ginormous stuffed Clifford the Big Red Dog (something I would have loved, loved, loved as a 10-year-old), some Bath & Body Works lotion, a couple sets of markers, a scrapbooking kit, a big black purse, blue socks, blue gloves, a blue shirt, blue undies, and a blue hat because her mom said her favorite color is, obviously, blue. I grabbed an extra set of blue gloves and shoved them in the bag. It was the last day and the last shopper and, heck, her Dad was wearing my Dad’s smile.

While Amanda’s mom was looking through the boxes of stuffed animals in the Free Room, I loaded up a canvas bag with trial-size lotions, shampoos, and perfumes. According to her mom, Amanda was always getting into her makeup and smell-good stuff. I dropped it in the larger sack without telling Amanda’s mom. The rule was two stuffed animals, two books, one box of crayons, and one other item from the Free Room per client. But it was the last day and the last shopper, and, heck, her Dad was wearing my Dad’s smile.

When they left, she gave me a solid hug, the kind of hug you appreciate for its firmness and sincerity. Not one of those perfunctory, polite hugs that leave you wondering why the person offered in the first place. She thanked me for making this easy for her because she felt embarrassed that she couldn’t afford Christmas this year but it had been such a hard year. I told her there was no reason to be embarrassed, sometimes life throws a lot at you at once and I hoped next year would be a better year for all of them. Being Pinky-esque, she teared up just a bit but turned away so I couldn’t see it. She took her father’s arm as I opened the door.

She thanked me for the millionth time and her Dad smiled at me again, and I said, through newly-formed tears, “No. Thank you.”