by Billy Coffey
Jacob didn’t see Santa. He was looking in the wrong direction. But I saw him. He wasn’t flying off into the gray sky shouting, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!” He was pulling out of the Super Mart parking lot in a white Chevrolet truck.
Mother and father didn’t know what to do. At first, I supposed, they considered the possibility that their son had pilfered it from the store. But how? Where could he have hidden it?
Then the father saw the note.
He mouthed the written words and then looked around the parking lot. Everything looked to be the normal commotion of people going about their own lives. Not a Santa to be seen. He tilted the page to his wife, who read it with a hand over her mouth. When she finished, she and her husband looked at one another for a long while.
He tucked the note into his pocket and finished loading the groceries. Jacob’s mother walked over and grabbed him up, putting both him and his new present into the backseat. As the father shut the trunk, he reached into his pocket and read the note again.
There was only one thing on my mind right then. I had to know what that note said.
I walked over to him and said, “Hey, buddy.”
“How ya doin’?” the father answered.
“Good. Don’t think this snow’s gonna stop anytime soon, though.”
“Nope,” he said. “Don’t reckon it will.”
We stood there as an awkward silence grew. “I heard your little boy. Sounded like he was pretty excited about something.”
“Yeah,” he said. “He sure was. Christmas present, you know.”
“Oh yeah? You couldn’t keep that one until Christmas morning, huh?”
“Shoot,” he answered, “it wasn’t ours to keep. Somebody just stuck it in the car. Wife and I just couldn’t believe it.”
“Huh,” I said. “That’s a little strange, isn’t it?”
“Buddy, you don’t know the strange part.”
“Oh yeah?” I prodded.
“It was one of them John Deere tractors. You know, the real kind? My boy wanted that thing real bad. Real bad. But the thing’s thirty bucks, you know?”
“Pretty steep.”
“You ain’t kiddin’. I mean, I work hard, you know. But…” he trailed off, then glanced at his family waiting in the car. “But we ain’t got much.”
I looked at his family. His wife was turned around in her seat smiling at Jacob, who was beaming with joy in the backseat. Yes, they may not have had much in the way of money, but they had a lot in the way of love. Financial security is one thing. Family security is quite another. Love can get you through a lot more than money can.
“Looks like you have a lot to me,” I said.
He smiled. “Yep, we got each other. That’s all I need. I want to give my son more, you know? But that toy? Just too expensive.” He shook his head for emphasis. “We didn’t have the heart to tell him. So my wife said that maybe Santa didn’t have enough room in his sleigh. I know that’s bad,” he said, before I could say that it wasn’t, “but what else are we gonna say? ‘Sorry, son, we’re just too poor’? I don’t think so.
“So we get out here and the thing is just sittin’ there in the backseat. Just sittin’ there, like it fell straight outta heaven. And then there was this.”
He handed me the note, and I opened it. Written in blue ink was this:
God gave to me, and now I give to you.
Merry Christmas.
Pass it on.
“Man,” I said. “That’s something.”
“You bet it is. And I tell you what, whoever did that didn’t just make my boy’s Christmas. He made his mom and dad’s Christmas, too.”
We said our good-byes and I watched as they drove off through the snow.
The Bible says that we should give thanks for our blessings. And everyone, I think, had plenty of things to be thankful for. But what is the best way to give thanks? Me, I’d always thought words were best. I always tried to make it a point to do more thanking of God than asking. But how about showing Him? Maybe the best way to say thank you to God for our blessings is to use them to bless someone else.
As Christians, we tend to take the easy way out when confronted with the problems of this world. If people are sick or hurting or just down in the dumps, what are the first words out of our mouths? “I’ll pray for you.”
Which is fine and wonderful. But sometimes the best prayers are the ones we do instead of say.
I didn’t know what God had given that man in the Chevy truck, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he knew he had much because God had given him much, and that meant he had to share the wealth. Not just money. It wasn’t the money that boy’s parents had appreciated. It was the act.
He did more than give a child a Christmas gift. He gave a family hope. And nothing in life was more valuable.
Pass it on.
6
Kenny McCallom’s Wonderful Life
There he was, at the end of the aisle moving boxes of cereal around.
Kenny McCallom.
At first I didn’t want to speak to him. I felt embarrassed. Not for him, though. For me. Over the years I had made it a sort of unconscious habit to avoid those people with whom I had graduated high school. Most had since gone on to another life in another place. It was easy enough to avoid them. But those who had held true to their roots and remained in town made it a little harder.
If I saw them they might ask me how I was, which was an innocent enough question. But that one innocent question might just lead on down to some other not-so-innocent questions. How I was doing could lead to what I was doing, which might lead to the inevitable question of why I was doing it. I know it’s complicated. I just didn’t want them to ask me what happened, you see. What happened to me, to all of those dreams I had and things I swore I would do. Most of which, of course, never happened at all. I was afraid they would think that instead of striking out into the world, I had struck out in my life. And that bothered me. It bothered me even more that I would care so much about impressing a group of people I hadn’t seen in years and never really liked in the first place.
Then again, I thought that maybe Kenny McCallom felt the same way. After all, standing there in front of me stocking boxes of Cheerios was the man who had once stood up in front of his classmates and announced that in ten years he would be spearheading the search for a cure for diabetes.
It was our final assignment for Mrs. Houser’s Creative Writing class. An oral essay. The subject was in the spirit of the class’s impending graduation from high school to the world beyond: describe what you think each class member will be doing in ten years, and then share what you hope to be doing.
Such assignments from Mrs. Houser were usually met with the expected moans and groans of her students. Not this one. Most of us saw it as a chance to both make ourselves shine and put some of the more haughty members of the class in their place. The idea of sanctioned retribution for four years of perceived inequality was enough to light the fires of impassioned oratory in us all.
The class clown, for instance, eventually signed a contract with a major network for his own sitcom, only to end up penniless and in rehab. The class beauty queen (who also knew she was the class beauty queen) ended up married to a pig farmer. You get the idea.
I made out all right, I suppose. Half the class had me playing baseball somewhere, and the other half had me living as a hermit in the mountains. I had chosen for myself the former, but the more I thought about it, the more the latter made sense.
And then there was Kenny. The boy who sat in the back row. The class target for all things mean and nasty. The kid whose clothes were dirty and whose shoes were always a size or two larger than necessary. Kenny didn’t make out so well, as I remember it. Most of the classmates gave him a mere passing sentence or two. He was only a waypoint between the jocks who would end up old and out of shape and the smart kids who would end up working down at the 7-Eleven. Most had him carving out a living a
t either a McDonald’s or a Pizza Hut. Some didn’t even mention him at all.
When it was Kenny’s turn to stand in front of the class and perform his own little act of fortune-telling, his version of the future was much kinder than most of the others. He let the jocks go on to careers in various professional sports, all the beauty queens became actresses or models, and the smart kids went on to become doctors and scientists. All of which caused a considerable amount of eye rolling from his classmates.
And then came the time when Kenny McCallom pronounced his own future plans. He did so with an even tone and a steely gaze. “In ten years,” he said, “Kenny McCallom will be a research scientist leading the search to cure diabetes, a disease he has struggled with since he was seven years old.”
A few of the kids in class smirked. Some smiled. Me, I think it was the first time I had ever heard him say anything.
And now, all these years later, there he stood at the other end of the aisle. Turned out that his classmates had, for the most part, been right. I wondered for a moment how many other people we had been right about.
And then I wondered if it really mattered. Why did the expectations of our former selves remain so important years later? The dreams I had at eighteen were bright and clear, unmuddied because of a blatant dismissal of reality. We could dream all we wanted when unencumbered by our own limitations, but those limitations had a way of making themselves known as the years followed us. Things often didn’t work out the way we thought they should. That wasn’t reason to convince myself I was a failure, it was reason to convince myself I was alive. I hadn’t been avoiding my classmates all those years. I had been avoiding the me I once was.
“Kenny?” I said.
“Yeah, hang on a second,” he said, shuffling around a few boxes of Lucky Charms. After finishing his task, which seemed to him to be the most important thing in the world, he turned to look at me. “Peter Boyd?”
“Yeah. How’s it going?” I asked, afraid to know the answer. After all, the guy was working in the cereal aisle at Super Mart. How in the world did I think he was doing?
“Great, man, just great!” he said with a big smile, sticking out his hand.
I shook it and smiled. His handshake was strong and sure, and as I shook it I noticed that Kenny had put on some muscle over the years. He’d been doing something right, at least.
“What have you been up to?” I asked.
Kenny sighed. “Oh, you know, just trying to make a living. Dude, what happened to your hair?”
I laughed and rubbed my bare scalp. “Two kids,” I said.
“I hear you, man, I hear you. Got three of my own now.”
“Really? That’s great. How long have you been married?”
Kenny scratched his chin and thought. “Well, I reckon it’ll be ten years come March. Time flies, man.”
“You bet it does,” I said. “It seems like we graduated just a couple years ago. It’s been, what, fifteen?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
There was an awkward pause then as we both stopped to consider the passage of time and how it always seems to speed up when we want it to slow down, and slow down whenever we want it to speed up.
“Did you go to the reunion?” he finally asked.
“Nah. Guess you didn’t, either.”
“No. I meant to. My wife kinda wanted me to, I guess. She thought it would be nice to put some faces to the names she’s been hearing about all these years. But I decided not to.”
“Yeah, same here.”
There was another awkward pause. It seemed neither of us knew exactly where to go with the conversation and were wondering if it had run its course.
Then he said, “So what happened with baseball, man?”
“Just wasn’t in the cards, I guess,” I said. “But I can’t complain. Everything’s worked out fine.”
“You remember that essay we had to give to the class for Mrs. Houser?” he asked.
“Actually I was just thinking about that.”
“You know I still got that thing at home?”
“Really?” I asked.
“No kiddin’. I don’t know why I kept it. I guess it was just pretty much the last thing I did in high school. You remember what I said I’d be doing?”
“No,” I lied.
Kenny chuckled a bit, then said, “I said I’d be some big researcher out to cure diabetes. Guess I was a little off on that one.”
“Well,” I said, “I guess eighteen’s a little too early to be planning out the rest of your life.”
“I guess so. You never know what’s coming down the pike, do you?”
“No, Kenny,” I said, thinking about what was coming down my own pike, “you sure don’t.”
“I mean,” he said with another chuckle, “I was about as sharp as a spoon in school. I couldn’t even get into college, much less medical school or whatever.”
“Well,” I said, “if it makes any difference, I was pumping gas a couple months after graduation. I know what it’s like.”
“There ya go, then. Where are you now?”
“The factory,” I said.
“Oh man.” He grimaced. “Sorry to hear about that. That place is goin’ downhill pretty quick, huh?”
Exciting Announcement!!!
“You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Bet I would, man. Bet I would. Things haven’t exactly been all roses and daisies, you know?”
“Oh yeah?” I asked.
“Well, you know, I still got the sugar. It’s been pretty hard on me. Doc had to take a toe off me about a year ago.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear that,” I said.
“Yeah. It’s one of those things where nobody really understands it unless they’re going through it.”
“Trust me,” I said. “I know what you mean. My little girl’s got sugar.”
“No, man, are you serious?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“How old is she?” he asked.
“Five. She was diagnosed with type one back in the summer.”
“Man, that’s awful. I got it when I was seven, you know. How’s she holding up?”
“Better than her parents,” I said. “She has her rough days, but she’s hanging in there. She’s a tough little gal.”
“I can imagine. But hey, it gets easier to deal with. She’ll be okay.”
“How’s yours?” I asked.
“Better. Not great, you know, but better. My wife, she’s got the sugar, too, so we have to keep each other square as far as our diet goes. And, you know, with three kids at home it doesn’t really pay for her to work, not with the money a sitter would charge. And she’s the kind of gal who wants to stay home with the kids anyway, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, remembering all those conversations I’d had with my wife about the very same thing.
“So it’s just me working. We’re not getting rich or anything. But what’s a guy gonna do? I can’t really go anywhere else, but that’s okay. I really like it here, and we’re doing okay.”
“That’s good to hear,” I said. “How are your kids?”
A twinkle lit up in Kenny’s eyes. “Oh man, my kids are great. Claire’s almost eight, Dylan’s three, and Jamie’s almost five. She’ll be startin’ school next year. I guess we’ll be going together then.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh man, yeah, I’ve gone back to school.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You know, most everybody in that class snickered when I said that I was going to be a doctor or whatever. But I was serious. I might be sittin’ here stocking shelves, but that’s not what the Lord put me here for, you know?”
“You don’t know how well I know,” I said.
“So yeah, I’m just seeing where it goes. I took a full load last semester. Lots of science and stuff, just getting my associate’s right now. But I averaged a three point six.”
“Three point six?” I said, more than a little surprised. �
��Man, that’s pretty good.”
“Well, you know, I gotta study. Like I said, I’m about as sharp as a spoon. And man, you should see some of these kids in college now. They think they got it all figured out and under control. Between me and you, they ain’t got a clue. But I like it. I think I got it in me. Our doc said that there was a pretty good chance some of the kids will get the sugar, too. It’s like a big monster, you know? One I’m still trying to kill.”
“You got that right,” I said.
“But I don’t let it get me down. It drives me, in a way. God might not have given me much as far as stuff goes, but He doesn’t need to give people much to make them happy. And I’m happy! I have a wife and kids and a future. I got plenty of time left to do something for the world.”
“I hope you do just that,” I said, meaning it. “Well, I gotta go, Kenny. The wife needs this bread and milk right now or else catastrophe might set in, and I still have a few more things to pick up before I can get outta all this madness.”
“Yep,” Kenny said, “you can always tell when it’s snowin’ with the bread and the milk.”
“Good seeing you, Kenny.”
“You, too, man. Wow, funny how time seems to slip away from you, huh?”
“Yeah, funny. Or maybe a shame.” We stood silent for a few moments, as if both of us were trying to figure out if that slippage of time was comical or shameful. In the end, I settled for both. “But anyhow, you take care of yourself. See ya, Kenny.”
“Have a good one.”
And we parted. I will admit that I felt a sense of shame and guilt over our little talk. I had always had a tendency to think of myself as a victim, whether of circumstance or God or myself. I was always the injured, the persecuted, the misunderstood. And yet there was Kenny McCallom, a man I had scarcely given thought to in some fifteen years, who knew more about being injured and persecuted and misunderstood than I, thank You Jesus, ever had.
