The Christmas Sweater

by Glenn Beck

  “Oh, Eddie.” Aunt Cathryn hugged me tight, her eyes swollen and red and her voice uncharacteristically soft. “I’m so sorry.” She tried to keep talking, but her words didn’t make any sense.

  Mrs. Benson and the others from the nursing home were there as well. But there wasn’t any cheek-pinching or caroling now, just tears and tender hugs. I wondered if I would ever see any of them again.

  Grandma said it would upset me if I touched Mom’s hand, but I didn’t care, I couldn’t possibly be any more upset than I already was. I went up to her casket. She didn’t seem real. She didn’t look like my mother at all—she looked more like one of the mannequins she used to dress at Sears. So still. So peaceful. Her soft hand, which used to push the hair out of my eyes, now lay lifeless across her chest, clutching a rosary. She was wearing a dress I had never seen before and makeup I was sure she had never bought.

  I reached out to touch her and noticed that I was wearing my Christmas sweater. I didn’t even remember putting it on.

  I wanted to cry. Actually, I felt like I should have cried, but as I stood there holding my mother’s hand, I was surprised to find that all I felt was anger. I was angry at a lot of people, but no one more than God. He’d now taken both my father and my mother. Why? What had they ever done to deserve that? God could’ve saved them from disease and car wrecks, but he’d chosen not to. God could’ve answered my prayers, but instead he’d ignored them. God hadn’t been there when my father had prayed for a second chance. He hadn’t been there when my mother had prayed for a blessed Christmas. And he obviously wasn’t there now.

  Grandpa must’ve sensed the transformation in my emotions. Just as I was about to collapse under the weight of all that I had been through and all that I still had to go through, he put his strong arms around me, pulled me close, and whispered three words that I didn’t understand at the time but that have stayed with me ever since: “All is well.”

  But with everything I loved once again lying in a casket, he couldn’t have been more wrong. Nothing was well. Nothing ever would be well again.

  The months after my mother’s death and funeral compressed themselves into a single point. I knew I was there, but my memories were like stories told by someone else. The fogginess lasted a long time. I didn’t live the time after the accident so much as I watched it unfold.

  I moved to my grandparents’ farm. My room at their house looked a lot like my old one, except the water spot on the ceiling was gone and I could always hear the chickens in the morning and the cows in the afternoon through my bedroom window. Their house smelled like bacon and fresh bread twenty-four hours a day, scents that always reminded me where I was and why I was there.

  I quickly became consumed with myself and what had happened to me. It was pretty easy to do. God obviously had it out for me, and now I had nothing but time to wonder why.

  My old friends called in the beginning to see how I was doing, but being outside of bike-ride range made it tough to get together. Of course, I didn’t have a bike, so that didn’t really matter anyway.

  Aunt Cathryn tried to call a few times as well, but it was awkward, because neither of us really knew how to talk to each other without Mom. Since long-distance calling was a luxury, it didn’t take long for us to lose touch.

  Grandpa and I still made trips into town to buy feed or wire or whatever was written on the scrap of paper tucked into his shirt pocket. He hadn’t changed, but I had. My mood was dark. I was angry. After a few trips I quit going voluntarily, and Grandpa stopped trying to make it fun. They became quick, silent, and all about getting what we were sent for and getting home as quickly as possible. After a few more trips like that, Grandpa quit dragging me along.

  One trip that didn’t stop was our weekly visit to Grandma’s church. We never missed a service. But there were no more games to pass the time; Grandpa didn’t want to be distracted. “Be respectful,” he would gently whisper during the sermon, “I’m trying to listen. You should too.”

  After mass ended, Grandma and Grandpa would usually sit in the front pew by themselves, put their heads down, and pray. I would stand in the back and wait for them. Sometimes I’d try to rearrange the prayer candles to create a pattern; other times I’d play with the holy water—but mostly I was just bored. I didn’t even feel close to Dad there anymore—it was like he and God had decided to abandon me at the same time.

  After a few weekends of watching my grandparents fool themselves into thinking God would help, I made a decision: They could make me go to church, but they couldn’t make me listen. Grandpa might have thought he could find answers at church, but I already had mine: God was dead. It wasn’t that he didn’t exist; he just didn’t exist for me. He heard my prayers and decided to ignore them, so now I would ignore Him right back.

  I would make Him suffer as much as He was making me.

  With no trips into town, Grandpa quickly manufactured other opportunities to guide his wayward grandson. Good weather brought a change in chores, and he decided it was worth forcing me to help him.

  Grandpa believed that hardware stores and lumberyards were only good for nails. After all, why pay for wood and windows when you could get them free from old barns or outbuildings? Grandpa had turned getting free supplies into a sport. Once he spotted a target, he would stop and ask the owner if he could relieve him of his broken-down eyesore. Usually the owner was so glad to have somebody haul the dilapidated building away that he’d jump at Grandpa’s offer.

  Once in a while someone would offer to sell him the wood, but Grandpa would politely decline. He never, ever paid for something that he could get for free. In some cases, if the person trying to get him to pay had just moved from Seattle, or, worse, some big city in California, Grandpa would talk them into paying him to remove the free supplies. He said that it was good for them to learn how things worked “out here in the sticks with us yokels.”

  Grandpa kept all the spare wood and windows he collected behind his barn. It had all been stacked hastily over the years and was in serious disarray. One day he led me back there, showed me the pile, and told me that he and I were going to build a new chicken house. I wasn’t exactly excited, but when he told me that all of the supplies first needed to be moved, stacked, and organized, I was downright angry. I couldn’t believe it. It would take me forever.

  Grandpa walked away for a few minutes and soon came back with two glasses of lemonade. He saw that I was struggling to move a large railroad tie, so he quickly put the glasses down and rushed over to my side to grab an end.

  “Don’t bother,” I told him. “I’ve got it.” I was so angry that he was dumping all this work on my shoulders that I didn’t even want him around me. Grandpa had never seen me like this before. Quite frankly, neither had I.

  Grandpa backed off immediately, picked up his glass, took a sip, and stood there watching me for a few minutes. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t even look at him. I wanted him to know that while I was going to finish his stupid chore, I wasn’t going to make him feel good about it. Finally, as he turned to leave he said simply, “Let me know when you’re done, Eddie.”

  Every couple of hours or so Grandpa would peek around the back of the barn to see how I was doing or to bring me another lemonade from the house. Each time he would ask me the same question: “Eddie, are you done yet?”

  As the days passed, Grandpa’s visits didn’t get any less frequent. He’d watch as I would struggle to lift and drag heavy beams from one part of the farm to another. He never even offered the obvious advice that it would have been wise to remove the old nails before moving the wood.

  A few times I saw him sitting on the back porch, laughing as he told tall tales to our neighbor David. Another time I came around the corner to get a drink of water out of the hose and saw him sleeping in the hammock. The sound of the spigot being turned woke him up, and our eyes met. “Are you done yet?” he asked me. I was seething.

  What a joke, I thought to myself. Now I know why Grandpa is h
andling Mom’s death so well. He’s happy to have me at the farm because he finally has someone to do all the hard work, all of his work, for free.

  With an increasingly sore body, and hands covered in cuts and slivers, my rage grew every time Grandpa asked me if I was done yet. How could someone be so coldhearted as to watch their own grandson struggle and never once even offer to help?

  About four days into my task, Grandpa came out with more lemonade, looked me right in the eyes, and recited the same question he’d been asking all along: “Are you done yet?” I just about went crazy. “Are you kidding me?” I shouted back at him. “Look at this pile. It will be days before I can move all of this. If you’re in such a hurry, maybe you could stop entertaining guests, taking naps, or trying to ease your conscience by bringing me stupid lemonade and offer to help me instead.”

  Grandpa looked at me sadly. “Eddie, I have offered to help you. I offered the first day, and I’ve offered every couple of hours since.”

  “When?” I shouted, bending down to continue my work. “All you’ve ever asked is when I’m gonna be done.”

  “No, Eddie, that may be what you’ve heard, but that’s not what I’ve been asking.” His voice was steady and calm. “I’ve been asking if you were done yet.”

  “Oh, sorry, Mr. English Professor.” I had never been this disrespectful to my grandfather. I felt myself changing, and while that scared me, I wasn’t sure how to stop it—and a growing part of me didn’t even want to.

  Grandpa grabbed me and, for the first and only time in my life, slapped me across the face. Tears welled up in his eyes.

  He was quiet for a few moments as he collected himself. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “When I showed you all of this work the other day, I said ‘we’ were going to build a new chicken coop. I didn’t say ‘I,’ and I certainly didn’t say ‘you.’ I never intended for you to do all this work yourself. You just assumed it. When I offered to help, you told me ‘not to bother.’ If you remember correctly, that is the first time I asked you to let me know when you were done. I didn’t mean done with the chore, I meant to let me know when you were done moping around. When are you going to be done feeling sorry for yourself? Done thinking that the world is against you?

  “The world isn’t against you, Eddie,” he continued. “You are against you. You have to realize that no one is meant to carry the load alone. We’re all in this together. Once you realize that you can ask for help, your whole world will change.”

  The stinging in my cheek made it hard to focus on what he was saying. “I think my world has already changed enough,” I replied.

  “Look, Eddie, I know life hurts terribly right now. Your grandmother and I pray every night that God will ease your pain and ours. But you are not the first young man to lose his mother, and I’m not the first man to lose his daughter. We could learn together how to miss her. You don’t have to do it alone.” I noticed his eyes for the first time in a long time: The piercing, look-right-through-you blue had turned tired and gray.

  “I’m sorry I slapped you just now, Eddie, but I don’t know who you are anymore. You are not the young man you are meant to be, and I don’t know who you are allowing yourself to become. I know it’s tough, but you’ve got to find your way through this. The hurt will pass, and, with time, you and I can learn to laugh together again.” He paused and looked away. “I want my daughter back. And Eddie, I want my best friend back. I want you back. Sometimes I think I lost both of you in that damned car.”

  Damn was a big swear word for my grandfather. I had seen worse words appear on his face, but Grandma didn’t put up with any cursing. I looked for anger, but his expression now showed only sadness and exhaustion. He looked old.

  It occurred to me for the first time, I think, that Grandpa had lost a daughter. He needed me just as much as I needed him. Like the time on the roller coaster, we needed to squeeze each other’s hands. It didn’t matter who was comforting whom.

  I was suddenly tired too. More than just physically; I was tired of being alone, tired of being mad all the time, tired of keeping my guilt caged in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to fall into my grandfather’s long arms and let him hold me and tell me everything was going to be all right. But I was still only twelve. I didn’t know how to go back. I didn’t know how to correct all of the mistakes I had made. I found strength in anger. I hated the words that came out next, but I couldn’t stop them:

  “I don’t need your help, and I certainly don’t need God’s.” My voice was calm, and I could feel the curl of the sneer on my lips.

  “I know you want to be mad at someone,” Grandpa replied calmly. “If you need that to get through the day, then be mad at me. But don’t be angry at God. He hasn’t done this to you. Things just happen. Sometimes it’s a consequence of our own actions, other times it’s not. Occasionally it’s just that bad things happen to good people. But God’s only plan is for you to be happy.”

  I stared at the ground, hoping he would just stop talking. He didn’t. “We all face challenges and tests, some bigger than others. They’re meant to strengthen us and prepare us for the road ahead. Not just for our sake, but for all those we encounter along the way. I don’t know what He has planned for us, but I do know that we’re meant to conquer it, Eddie. He will never leave us in a place without the strength and knowledge we need.” I wondered if Grandpa had learned all of that during one of his marathon church sessions.

  “His help?” I looked up and met Grandpa’s steely gaze. I felt my entire body begin to heat up. “I think He’s helped us enough already, don’t you? If killing innocent people is some sort of challenge or test, then God is sick and His lessons are as helpful as this stupid chicken coop. Which, by the way, I haven’t finished yet.” I bent down and picked up another old barn board. As I walked away I muttered something just loud enough for Grandpa to hear. “I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

  On the last day of school one of my teachers stopped me in the hallway and put her hand on my shoulder. “Eddie, have you met Taylor?”

  “I don’t think so,” I answered, wondering why she cared. She produced a boy my age from somewhere behind her.

  “Taylor, this is Eddie. Eddie, Taylor.” She stood in front of and between us, a hand on each of our shoulders. “You two are neighbors. Did you know that?”

  “I haven’t seen you before,” I said to the gangly boy. His chocolate brown hair was curly and shot out in every direction. It was obvious that no amount of spit could tame it.

  “I don’t ride the bus,” he answered.

  We stood there looking awkwardly at each other. The teacher—her good deed now done—smiled and walked away.

  “Where do you live?” I asked.

  “Out on Route 161 a ways.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You want a ride home? The bus stinks.”

  I didn’t know if he meant it figuratively or literally. Either way, he was right.

  We walked out a side entrance and up to a long tan car. “Wow,” I asked, “is this yours?”

  Taylor seemed to like the fact that I thought it was cool. “No, we stole it,” he replied. It was my first taste of Taylor’s never-ending sarcasm.

  The car was a brand-new, mammoth Lincoln Continental Mark V, and while it was unlike anything I’d ever been in before, it really wasn’t “cool” so much as it was impressive to a kid who was used to bread-bag shoes. “Is your dad a doctor or something?” I asked.

  “Actually, yeah,” Taylor replied. “He’s a brain surgeon.”

  “Really?” Coming from a family of bakers, that was even more impressive than the car.

  “No, gotcha again. Boy, Eddie, you’re really easy to fool. My dad is actually a salesman.” Taylor smiled and opened the door. His parents were in the front seat.

  “Who’s your friend?” Taylor’s mother asked.

  “This is Eddie.”

  “Hello, Eddie. I’m Janice, Taylor’s mother, and this is Stan, his dad.”
r />   “Hi, Eddie,” Stan said.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs…”

  “Ashton,” they said in unison, “but call us Stan and Janice.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Ashton, nice to meet you.”

  “Same here, Eddie,” Mr. Ashton said. “What’s the plan, Taylor?”

  “Eddie lives near us. I told him we could give him a ride home.”

  “Sure, happy to,” Mr. Ashton said as he wrestled the Continental into gear. “Climb in.”

  “Can we talk you into joining us for dinner, Eddie?” Mrs. Ashton asked as we turned onto the road leading to my grandparents’ farm. “We’re going out to Taylor’s favorite restaurant.”

  Wow, I thought. Out to eat? On a Tuesday? They must be loaded. “I’d love to…Stan, but my grandparents are probably expecting me.” I felt weird calling an adult by his first name.

  “Well, just give them a call and see if it’s all right.”

  We got to Taylor’s house a few minutes later, and I immediately called my grandmother. Her happiness over my making a new friend apparently outweighed any disappointment about my not being home for dinner. After I explained who the Ashtons were and where they lived, she reluctantly agreed to let me eat with them.

  Dinner was like an adventure for me. I hardly ever got to eat out, and never on a regular old Tuesday. On special occasions my parents used to take me out for an All American Banana Split at Farrell’s ice cream parlor, but it had to be a birthday for something like that to happen. Even still, Mom always reminded me about not ordering milk—she obviously didn’t care that it came from the same place as ice cream.

  I didn’t know what Mr. Ashton did for a living, but he must have been rich. Not only were we allowed to order milk but we could order pop too. That was a real treat, considering the fact I didn’t get to drink pop at restaurants or at home. In fact, for a long time I didn’t even know what pop was, other than the fact that it had lots of bubbles.