The Christmas Shoes (Christmas Hope)

by VanLiere, Donna

  “Mom, what are you doing?”

  “Just cleaning up a little.”

  “Could you come here for a second?”

  Evelyn threw down the dishcloth, dashing into the living room. She had learned to act quickly over the last several weeks. Sometimes the pain left Maggie curled into a ball, begging for medication, but that was usually before one of Sylvia’s visits, not after.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I just want to talk to both of you while we’re alone.”

  Evelyn sat next to Jack, and they looked uneasily at Maggie.

  “I have something very important that I want both of you to hear,” she began.

  Jack set aside his lunch and stood up to be closer to his wife’s side. “What is it, Maggie?”

  “As I was telling Rachel stories today this popped into my head, and I knew you’d both have to hear it because if just one of you heard it, you’d tell the other one someday that I never said any such thing.”

  “Well, what is it?” Evelyn asked, sitting up.

  “I don’t ever want you to force Rachel to wear my wedding gown.”

  Jack and Evelyn looked at each other.

  “What?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t want you to force Rachel to wear my wedding gown.”

  “You got me all upset inside for that?” Evelyn protested.

  “Yes!” Maggie laughed. “It’s important to me. Twenty-two years from now, I don’t want either one of you forcing her to wear my gown out of sympathy. She may not like that gown, and I don’t want her to wear it just to make one of you happy. I want her to wear what will make her happy on her wedding day. Now, promise me.”

  “I promise,” Jack chuckled.

  “Mom?”

  Evelyn crossed her arms. She could barely think of Maggie’s death, let alone talk about it. And she would never consider laughing about it.

  “You know, I don’t like talking about these things,” Evelyn said. “I may not even be around when Rachel gets married.”

  “Well, I know I won’t be around, and that’s why I want to make sure one of you two won’t be forcing her to wear some old, ratty gown from the seventies.”

  “Fine! I won’t make her wear it. You didn’t wear mine—why would I expect her to wear yours?”

  “Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up.” Maggie laughed, noticing her mother had found no amusement in the conversation at all.

  “For a minute there, I thought I was going to have to break you two up,” Jack said, taking his plate into the kitchen. He didn’t like to laugh about these things either, but if making light of them helped Maggie, then he was going to try his best to find the lighter side as well.

  Maggie observed that her mother was obviously bothered by something. Evelyn stood up to follow Jack into the kitchen when Maggie stopped her.

  “Mom, wait,” she begged. “I didn’t know that would upset you.”

  Evelyn patted her daughter’s hand.

  “I’m not upset. I just want to make sure Jack’s had enough to eat.” She attempted to make her getaway again.

  “Mom, come on. Look at me. I can’t chase you down. What’s wrong?”

  Evelyn sighed, trying her best to maintain control.

  “It’s just one of those things that I never imagined I’d ever have to think about,” she said slowly. “I wish that Rachel would wear your dress. I wish that she’d want to wear it.” Evelyn felt her emotions swelling, but she held them back. Jack leaned on the stove. This was a moment he knew would come, but he was not prepared for talking about the reality of Maggie not being with them for track races or football games, cheerleading tryouts or senior proms, graduations or wedding days. He braced himself as he walked into the living room and sat on the chair next to Maggie.

  “Listen,” Maggie started, looking at Jack and her mother. “We all know that Rachel’s too young to remember me.” A tear rolled slowly down Evelyn’s face. “It’s true, Mom. She is. But my things aren’t going to make me alive to her. I want her to know things about my personality. I want her to know why I fell in love with her daddy. I want her to know that I would nearly burst into tears when I’d carry her through Ferguson’s and people would stop me and say what a beautiful baby she was. And I want her to know that I thanked God every single day of her life for her. Those are the things I want to be kept alive in Rachel.”

  Jack stared at the floor, wondering if there would ever be an easy conversation in his life again.

  “Can you do that for me, Mom? Can you keep me alive that way?”

  Evelyn wiped her face and nodded.

  “I can do that,” she said convincingly. “I would love to do that.” Yet there was nothing inside of Evelyn that would ever want to talk about her daughter in the past tense. She wanted to wrap her in her arms as she did when Maggie was the child who pleaded “Up…. Up” and simply make it all better.

  Six inches of snow fell the last week of school before Christmas break. Doris had learned over the years that there was no point in expecting her students to concentrate on anything when the holidays loomed tantalizingly near. As red-and green-frosted cupcakes were passed out, Doris asked the students to stand and each read their story of their favorite Christmas memory.

  Joshua told the story of making the biggest snowman on his block, and how some crazy neighbor came over in the middle of the night and knocked its head off, smashing it into a bazillion snowy pieces and making his little sister cry for three whole days. Alyssa related a tale about the year she got a brandnew puppy and how it went potty on her mother’s brandnew sofa. Visiting Santa’s workshop was Patrick’s favorite memory. He got to see how all the toys were made and loaded into Santa’s sled. He even got to pet a reindeer, which, he announced to the class, smelled like doo-doo, and that produced a chorus of giggles from the audience of eight-year-olds. Desmond loved visiting his Grandma and Grandpa, and eating fudge till he got sick. Tyler liked the year he stayed awake until four in the morning and caught Santa sneaking in through the kitchen door instead of coming down the chimney. He even claimed he’d taken a picture with his camera but couldn’t find it to show the class. Of course, everyone was terribly disappointed. Nathan read a short tale about going sledding with his mom and dad, and then eating chicken and dumplings while his mom and dad danced around the house. When he was done, he quietly took his seat, licking the remainder of red frosting from the crinkled paper cupcake wrapper. Doris laughed and clapped after each student finished. Then it was her turn.

  She recalled when she was also a child of eight, and on Christmas, her grandmother gave her a pair of shoes adorned with sparkly, pink beads. She put them on and twirled and curtsied and danced around the house, she said, feeling like a beautiful fairy princess until she fell asleep on her grandfather’s lap. When she woke up the next morning, she was in her own bed…but was still wearing her beaded shoes. “So I got out of bed and danced and twirled and curtsied some more!” she exclaimed, as her students giggled. “I had never felt so special in all my life.”

  She led her students in choruses of “Jingle Bells,” “Frosty the Snowman,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” even popping in Rudolph’s famous story in the VCR for a last-day-of-class treat. At the end of the day the students screamed in frenzied joy as they scurried to their locker cubbies at the back of the classroom to gather the things they’d crammed inside when they had arrived. Doris helped bundle them into their snow jackets, hats, scarves, boots, and gloves, each child looking like a plump, colorful goose when fully dressed. As the children embarked onto buses and into the waiting cars of parents, Doris couldn’t remember having more fun with one of her classes. There was an electricity, a joy, that buzzed through the classroom unlike any Doris had experienced before. Maybe it was because it was her last year of teaching and she was letting go. Or maybe it was because God had filled the room with incredible laughter and song to help one of His smallest children through the greatest sadness of his life.

>   Whatever the reason, Doris was grateful. It had been a wonderful day.

  Five

  Faith is not intelligent understanding, faith is deliberate

  commitment to a Person where I see no way.

  —Oswald Chambers

  Jack had been installing a carburetor he’d rebuilt when Carl and Ted approached him.

  “How’s everything going, Jack,” Ted began, sliding his hands in his pockets.

  “Almost finished here, Ted. What d’ya need?”

  “Nothing,” Carl answered, folding his hands across his wide belly, then opting for his pockets as well. “We just wanted to let you know that we’ve talked about it and would like you to take as much time as you need right now.” Carl scratched his bald head, slipped his hand back into his pocket, and continued, “Ted’s son is back from college and can help us out here until he heads back to school in January. It’ll do him good to get his hands dirty after all that readin.’” When Carl said “we’ve talked about it,” he meant he and his brothers.

  Jack stared into the engine, trying to think of the right thing to say. Every now and then in life there were those people who couldn’t take away the load you carry but they sure could make it easier. In their own quiet way, the Shaver brothers were making his load easier.

  “I’ll make up the work,” Jack said to the carburetor, feeling too awkward to make eye contact.

  “We know you would,” Carl replied, talking to the same carburetor. “But there’s no need to do that.”

  “You don’t have to come into the shop to pick up your check,” Ted added. “Mike will send it to you every week.”

  Jack fumbled for words. He would be receiving a check for work he wouldn’t be doing.

  “Now let me take over that carburetor,” Ted said, stepping in beside him, “and you head on home.”

  Jack tried to speak, but Ted already had his head under the hood, and Carl had quietly disappeared. Jack washed his hands, grabbed his coat, and drove home for the last holiday season he would spend with his wife.

  When Nathan arrived home, he was surprised to see his father there so early. Nathan showered his family with chocolate snowmen and hard-candy snowflakes. He hung a construction-paper Christmas tree at the foot of his mother’s bed and lined the bed rails with the snowflakes he had cut out with his class that morning, using a roll of Scotch tape he got from the kitchen table, where Evelyn had started wrapping presents. When he stuck a crisp, white crafted paper snowflake onto the bed, Rachel ripped it off, laughing merrily at her crime.

  “Rachel. No!” Nathan screamed, grabbing the torn snowflake from his sister’s sticky clutch. “Leave those alone.” Rachel ran to the other side, ripped off another flake, and giggled endlessly as her brother fumed and hollered.

  “You’re ruining them,” he yelled, pushing her down. “Stop it.”

  Jack picked up his crying daughter and turned her upside down, which led to shrieks of delight.

  “That’s enough, Nathan,” Jack scolded.

  “She was ruining them!” Nathan shouted.

  “Well, now it looks perfect,” Maggie affirmed. “I feel like I’ve been plopped down right in the middle of a winter wonderland.”

  Evelyn looked at her watch and scooted Nathan and Rachel out the door to go grocery shopping with her. She knew Sylvia would be there soon to administer some much needed pain medication. Maggie’s pain had grown worse over the last several days, and she didn’t want the children to see her in discomfort. The children never seemed to catch on, and if they complained about going somewhere, Jack would merely say, “But who’s going to help your grandma if you don’t go?” and Nathan would scurry to put his boots on as Rachel tumbled after.

  When the dinner dishes were washed and put away, Jack helped Maggie into the bathroom. There were times nausea from the medications overwhelmed her, and after hours of queasiness she would finally vomit, which left her even weaker than before. She had motioned to Jack that she was not feeling well in the sign language they had developed between the two of them. He swung her legs over the side of the bed and eased her onto the floor. She’d lost a lot of strength, but she was still able to walk if Jack helped her. Turning on the fan, Jack supported her body as Maggie retched into the sink. He wrapped his arm around his wife, rinsed out the sink, and helped her back, gently tucking her into bed. With Jack’s arm around her, Maggie felt as if he was the strongest man she’d ever known.

  When Maggie was comfortable in her bed again, the family sat down together to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas before Evelyn laid Rachel down for the night. They laughed as the whole Peanuts gang prepared for the Christmas pageant Charlie Brown was directing. Rachel laughed particularly loudly while watching Snoopy dance with his nose sticking straight up in the air.

  “That’s one of my favorite Christmas stories,” Evelyn said, scooping Rachel up in her arms. Nathan bolted upright, realizing he’d left his very own Christmas story in his backpack. Evelyn ran water in the bathtub for Rachel’s bath as Nathan plopped down in the seat by his mother to read her his favorite Christmas memory.

  “Mrs. Patterson had everybody stand up in class and read their stories,” Nathan eagerly told his parents. “Tyler took a picture of Santa coming in his kitchen door, and somebody hacked Joshua’s snowman to death.”

  “Oh, that sounds awful,” Maggie said, smiling.

  Nathan read from his paper: “My favorite Christmas memory was when my mom and dad and me went sledding all day long at Whitman’s Farm. My dad fell off the back of the sled because we had too many people on it, and my mom laughed the whole way down the hill. Then we ate chicken and dumplings and drank hot chocolate, and my mom and dad danced around the Christmas tree.” Maggie admired the story and smiled at the backward d’s, the g’s that looked like j’s, and the m’s with one too many humps. She complimented Nathan for having such a good memory. It was hard to believe that it had been only three years ago. Maggie could see it all as if it had just happened yesterday. She and Jack had sandwiched Nathan on the sled, and just a quarter of the way down the hill, Jack fell off and Maggie howled with laughter, watching him tumble and roll down the hill before coming to a complete halt, spread-eagle on his belly.

  “That would definitely have to be my favorite Christmas memory too,” she said, holding the story.

  “Mine too,” Jack offered. “Even though I couldn’t walk straight for two weeks afterward.”

  “Then remember you and Daddy dancing around the tree?” Nathan teased.

  Maggie’s eyes blurred. Jack always loved to dance, even though he wasn’t very good, but what he lacked in grace, he made up for in reckless abandon.

  “Your mother is a fabulous dancer,” Jack told his son.

  “Mrs. Patterson told us her Christmas story about how she danced in a special pair of pink shoes her grandma gave her. She even slept in them,” Nathan exclaimed.

  “Oh my, they do sound very special,” Maggie agreed, smiling.

  Evelyn pulled Rachel from the tub and wrapped her in her favorite snuggly towel, then took her into her room, closing the door behind them. Maggie looked at her son’s handsome face. He was his father’s child, blue eyes and all. In the quietness of the moment, she knew she had to talk with Nathan about the upcoming days. She knew this might be one of her last chances to spend some quality alone time with her baby boy, but she struggled with how to begin.

  “Honey, would you mind making me something warm to drink?” she asked Jack, her eyes imploring him to leave the room.

  Jack jumped from his seat, knowing what his wife was about to say. They had talked about it the previous days, how and what and when to tell Nathan. Maggie’s condition was rapidly worsening. Neither Jack nor Maggie talked about time, but they both knew it was running out.

  “Sure,” he said, exiting to the kitchen.

  “Mrs. Patterson always thinks up such fun things for you to do,” Maggie said to Nathan. “What was the story you had to write a few weeks ago that I
liked so much?”

  “About the frogs?”

  “No. I liked that one a lot, but wasn’t there one about flowers?”

  “Oh yeah!” his eyes beamed. “What are flowers thinking underneath all the snow.”

  Maggie smiled at her son’s enthusiasm. He had always loved helping her in the flower beds. When he was just a toddler, she would point to the smallest dot of green in the ground and say “Look, Nathan, here it comes,” and then day by day they’d watch the flowers grow and bloom throughout the spring and summer.

  Maggie repositioned herself, fighting back tears as she spoke to her son.

  “You know, a lot of things are going to be happening over the next few weeks,” she began slowly. “And a lot of it might be confusing to you.”

  Nathan was already confused, and his look told her so.

  “Nathan,” she soothed. “One day when you’re older you might want to blame God for making me sick, but I don’t want you to do that.” Nathan frowned, bewildered. Why was his mother talking about being sick? He had always assumed that she would get better because really sick people were the ones who were in the hospital. “I want you to always know that God didn’t make me sick, He helped me through this sickness,” she comforted. “He gave me strength to play with you and Rachel and held me on my really horrible days.”

  Nathan put his head down. He didn’t like talking about his mother’s sickness. Maggie struggled to find the right words to say to her eight-year-old son.

  “In a little while,” she said slowly, “you may hear grown-ups say things like, ‘Isn’t it a pity? God took her so young.’ But they’re wrong, Nathan. They’re wrong, and I don’t want you to listen to them. When they say things like that, I want you to remember what I’m telling you now. God didn’t take me, He received me.”