The Christmas Wish

Shawna was thirteen, overweight, and precocious, but she had a sweet heart and only one wish for Christmas. Shawna wanted a family. The oldest child in her foster home and the only African American made the odds of her being adopted by Christmas pretty slim. But that didn’t stop her from wishing it, even if it was the same wish year after year.

This year was going to be different, Shawna told herself; this year, the TV station was spotlighting her so that all the viewers could see what a great addition she would make to any family. Her foster mom had found a pretty red dress with a black sweater, black tights and black Mary Jane shoes with flat heels. At five foot two, she was already full size but she didn’t want to appear older than she was. She’d never get adopted that way, she was told.

The day came for her to be interviewed by the nice lady who anchored the news for the local TV station. She was pretty and smiled a lot and asked Shawna lots of questions. And while they walked around the Mall during the interview a camera followed them around. She asked and Shawna answered, but Shawn couldn’t remember what she asked later and when the actual interview was on TV, Shawna became embarrassed and walked out of the living room at her foster home.

Eleanor was sitting on the couch in the den watching her two children as they attempted to decorate the Christmas tree. She had managed to drag the box with the artificial tree down from the attic, and then she had stood it up in the corner of the den in front of the window as her children insisted. It was a beautiful tree at almost seven feet tall, and the fact that it came with the lights made decorating it that much easier. Carrying the box with all the ornaments had been harder for Eleanor as it was bulky and most of the ornaments were breakable. However, once the box was down the stairs her children eagerly began decorating the tree. Their goal was to get it done as fast as possible before their mother changed her mind as she had done the past three years.

The twins were nine years old; Jeremy and Janice. Handsome and beautiful children, both had blond hair and blue eyes, like their mother, Eleanor. They attended public school and enjoyed sharing the same fourth grade class at the school down the road. Now that they were on Christmas break, the twins spent all their time together and although writing a letter to Santa seemed a bit immature for nine year olds, their teacher had used it as a writing exercise the last day of school asking his students to write a paper describing one Christmas wish. Later the twins shared their letters with each other and realized that their Christmas wishes were the same – to be a family again.

After her children had gone to bed, Eleanor fixed herself a cup of hot tea and continued to sit on the couch staring at the twinkling lights. As she did her mind wandered to years past and other Christmas trees in her home when life was good and her family was whole. She saw her husband John kneeling on the floor holding the fresh fir tree trying to steady it while Eleanor directed him to lean it this way or that way. In the end it was always crooked but always perfect. And she could see their beautiful daughter Emily standing on the step stool placing the angel on the top of the tree. The oldest of their three children, it was Emily’s job to place the angel they had gotten when she was born on Christmas Day thirteen years ago.

And then Eleanor’s mind wandered to the present day and she focused her eyes searching for John and Emily. Expecting them to walk through the door just in from the store, it still took Eleanor by surprise when she realized this was not going to happen. Then she remembered over and over that horrible day when a drunk driver ran through a stop sign and crashed into John’s car killing both him and Emily who had insisted she go with her father to the store.

Shawna had thrown herself on her bed in the room she shared with two other girls and was crying her heart out when her foster mom came into the room. Putting her hand on Shawna’s back, she rubbed her gently comforting the young girl. Shawna knew that the things she said during the interview would make people laugh at her; that they would see her as crazy for thinking someone could love her or would want her as part of their family. Had she actually said she wanted a single mom? Did she really want a brother and sister? And did she say she wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up because she liked to argue? She didn’t mean to say these things; they just came out when the nice lady interviewed her. But Shawna knew the truth. Who would want to adopt a thirteen year old black girl whose mother died of a drug overdose and whose father got drunk for the hundredth time and killed a man and his little girl?

Christmas Eve morning arrived. The twins came downstairs and found their mother asleep on the couch in the den. Most of the time their mother was fairly normal acting, but each year at this time of year she fell into a depression that they could do nothing to help her but tiptoe around her and stay to themselves. There were no presents under the tree which was not a surprise to the twins. Santa would come as he did each year even after the accident three years ago, and their grandparents would drive in from the country and bring gifts, but there were no presents from their mother. Jeremy and Janice looked at the beautiful tree and especially the angel on top and saw that it was glowing like a bright light bulb.

Eleanor heard the children come down the stairs and sat up stretching her arms high above her head. She had not meant to fall asleep on the couch again, but feeling the loss of her husband was more than she could bear. So she remained on the couch where she could bury her sadness under the crocheted afghan her mother had made her when she was a child. Eleanor looked at her precious twins and saw their faces glowing, a reflection of the light coming from the tree she thought. And then she looked at the tree, and she too saw the angel on top shining brightly. Made of straw and calico cotton, and without electric power, the angel’s glow was shining from within radiating out into the room.

Then the angel spoke to them saying, “Your family is whole; your Christmas wishes are granted.” And suddenly the glow from the angel spread throughout the room filling it with a brilliant blue and yellow light swirling and swirling around the family of three. And when the light went out, Eleanor found that she was holding her children in her arms clinging to them. And even odder, the television set was on. Eleanor didn’t remember turning the set on or leaving it on the night before. The three of them turned toward the TV set and saw a beautiful young girl being interviewed and making her Christmas wish to have a family. She was thirteen, talented, funny, and a good student. She was well-liked by her friends and respected by her teachers. She wanted a single mom and a brother and sister for Christmas – a family who would love her as she loved them back. Eleanor looked at her children and they looked at their mother whose eyes were twinkling with happiness along with her pink cheeks and a smile on her beautiful lips. And she said to her children, “Let’s go bring Shawna home.” To which they responded, “Let’s go be a family!”



Merry Christmas from the Shartle family:

Happy Birthday Mama

Yesterday was my mother’s birthday; born December 6, 1928, she would have been 81 if she were alive today. She was 63 when she died in 1991. Her favorite story to tell was sitting in the movie theater in Baton Rouge on Third Street with several of her girl friends who gathered to celebrate her 13th birthday, December 7, 1941, sixty-eight years ago. In the middle of the movie, that afternoon, the manager stopped the movie and told the audience that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Later President Roosevelt called that day, “A date which will live in infamy.”

For my mother, it did, as she never celebrated her birthday again without remembering the attack on Pearl Harbor the next day. In fact, what became even stranger was that we often made her birthday celebration a two-day event. She always felt cheated that they couldn’t finish the movie and so my father would make a special dinner for us or take my mother out to dinner on December 6th and then on December 7th we kids would bake and decorate a cake for her and give her presents. We hoped it would make up for her missing that birthday party in 1941.

It was a little thing and when you think about it now, kind of stupid for her to hold such a grudge, but you would have to understand this woman, my mother, who lived a charmed life as a child; pretty, smart, pampered, popular, and loved by all. Then once she became an adult and felt her life was not worth living, she spent the majority of it inside the bottle of cheap whiskey trying to will her life away. And we as her children along with our father who adored her used any mechanism we could find to bring the happy, healthy and whole Anna Marie back to life.

So if celebrating her birthday for two days worked, we did it. Not to say, we didn’t mourn the loss of so many Americans that fateful day, but saving our mother was more important at the time and so in honor of those men and women who lost their lives in the attack on Pearl Harbor, I say thank you for giving your lives for your country. And to my dear mother, I say Happy Birthday….the cake’s in the oven.

Ode to Fall

I decided to write a few haiku verses related to this extraordinary Fall we are having here in Tennessee and from the observation of others also experiencing a beautiful Fall.

Leaf of God

Sitting at my desk
Music played from my CD
Something caught my eye.

Bright colored leaves danced
To the tune of the music
God was in each leaf.

Blue Skies

A fall blue sky can
Turn many shades all day long
Drawing me upwards.

Deep turquoise sparkles
Like gemstones in the ocean
And the blue was God.

The Last Flower

A pink rose stands tall
As the last flower to bloom
On my patio table.

It is very cold
And yet the flower speaks
Saying I am one with God.

Eternal Day

Life is one Eternal Day. Grasping this concept has not been easy and I must confess I work on it time and again. Basically there are two ways to measure time, chronological- using numbers to count the days or Kairos which literally means the “right or opportune moment,” or Divine time.

We have heard that even Albert Einstein concurred late in life that the past, present and future all exist simultaneously. He had already proven that time was relative not absolute like Newton believed. Later scientist Richard Feynman developed an interpretation of the quantum mechanics describing time as simply a direction in space. Professor Stephen Hawking has sense developed a theory, entitled “Imaginary Time” in which time has no boundary. “It would just BE.”

For me the question is not when does time begin and end but the challenge of living in the divine present moment. I know a man who just learned that he has at least two aneurisms that could explode at any time. A prestigious university hospital has told him to go home and live his life as usual; come back in six months and they will rethink surgery. Has this man been given a gift that is a blessing or a curse? Every day he will wake now knowing that something inside his body could at any instant stop time as he sees it ending his life. But then, the aneurisms were there before he knew of them. Why is it different; because he now knows about them? I wonder can he live each day as both the last day of his life and at the same time the first day of the rest of his life. But isn’t that we are all called to do every day? -To live each day fully and completely.

So if life is one Eternal Day with no beginning and no end; no past, no present; no future then what is life? It is timeless. And when we put down the burden of time, live in the present moment then we are making room for grace. Grace is living in a timeless trust in God in the here and now – the moment – this one Eternal Day. And the real challenge for me is am I strong enough to wake each day and not only say, “This is a good day to live!” but also say, “This is a good day to die.”

"Go Live"

Yesterday, I met with the board of the Chattanooga Writers Guild in a workshop/planning session to start the new year. It was a successful meeting and we accomplished a lot. There are four new members on the board this year. So we spent part of the session getting to know one another.

One new member could not be at the meeting because his company rolled over a new product and it was “Going Live.” Someone asked what that meant and so another member explained saying that when a new product is worked on some times for months and other times as much as a year and is ready to go into production or made public for the first time, the term is “going live.”

Having heard this term before from my son and two daughter-in-laws who have at one time or another “gone live” in their own line of work, I was familiar with the term. But the explanation this member used was like the goalie in a hockey match. When he fails to block the puck and the other team scores, bells and whistles go off telling all in the arena that this goalie just messed up big time. And so it is when a company goes live, every department or person is exposed and if something fails bells and whistles don’t go off, but everyone knows who caused the failure.

I made the comment after the explanation that I go live every day of my life. And as soon as I said it I realized the truth in that statement. Everything I do in my life, I am accountable for – no one else. And when I fail at doing what I’m supposed to do there are repercussions. I won’t hear bells and whistles, but I will know that I didn’t do justice to what I said I’d do. Or I didn’t make good on the promise I made. And why would anyone want to live like that?

I don’t. So that is why I live each day with purpose so that it will be a Perfect Day. I wake to a bright new dawn and “Go Live” living my life as God intends me to live it.

Love and Peace

I am a little bit clairvoyant in that I can sense things before they happen or I’m able to see things before they occur. It doesn’t happen often and is sporadic to say the least. I inherited it from my father.

When he was a young man, he went home to Beaumont, TX to visit his parents, leaving my mother and new born baby, me, in Gulf Port, MS. It was a necessary trip I was told later in life as my father and his parents had been fighting and he felt it was important to reconcile with them.

He failed. Leaving he was halfway to Mississippi when he had the overwhelming sense of doom and turned around only to find his brother in the driveway telling him their mother had died. My father never forgave himself for leaving mad and not being able to tell his mother he was sorry.

Fortunately, I’ve never experienced such a vision with tragic repercussions. Mine are more whimsical. For example last night the hostess for our book club forgot that two members don’t eat shrimp and that she had intended to buy some chicken for them. I offered to go get some for her and she said the local Mapco (gas station) had the best fried chicken on our mountain so I made the quick trip to the station. As I got out of the car I saw a shiny penny on the ground. I said to myself, “A lucky penny.” And I picked it up. I entered the station to find only two chicken breasts left and no more being cooked.

However there was a day in our country’s history where many people woke and found that if only they had said this, or done that, or kissed their love one goodbye…if only they could know the future.

This morning I woke early to do my devotions and as I lit my candles I began to shake and cry and could not figure out why. And then I opened my book and saw the date 9/11. You would think that after eight years, I would not still be affected by the tragedy of that fateful day. And then I thought to myself, if I am feeling this way and I only witnessed it through television, how are all the many people who were actually there dealing with it?

Then I realized that if my reaction in some way could help relieve the pain in another then so be it. I may not be there in person with those that lost loved ones or were injured themselves, but I can in Spirit share their pain and loss and if that helps then I welcome the opportunity. It is the least I can do.

I firmly believe that it’s important to remember and honor this day but I also believe that it should be so that it in no way gives the people responsible credibility. They win if we continue to give them credit for ruining our lives. Instead we honor the ones that died for our country even if they did so unwillingly by remembering this day with love and peace in our hearts.

Time is Never Wasted

I'm supposed to be at a workshop right now, "writing your family stories," sponsored by the Chattanooga Writers Guild, of which I'm a member. We tried to get a grant to have this workshop and the planning committee realized it was too late so we decided to go with the concept and see what happened.

Designed for Hispanics in the community to learn to write their family stories, the committee had translators, facilitators of small groups, and assistants (such as me) all lined up to help. But not one Hispanic signed up for the course.

But God works in mysterious ways and instead over fifteen people heard about the workshop and came to learn to tell their family stories. Men, women, young, middle-aged and old showed up, each on a mission to share their stories and pass them down to their children and grandchildren.

Since there were enough helpers present I decided to leave once we broke off to small groups, knowing that I will be there the last two Thursdays to help if needed. And in the meantime, the CWG Vice-president and I talked and decided this was a good lesson for us in that we need to find out why the Hispanic community was not interested and how great it was that there were so many others who were. This is important too because I am the president-elect for the CWG board which begins a new year next week.

Sometimes when I volunteer for things and then find I'm not needed, I become frustrated but this time I was not. Going downtown after dinner I was treated with so many different delights that I don't often have the pleasure of seeing that it was worth the drive. First of all I followed a line of cars driving slowly down the mountain behind a huge truck filled to the brim with recycled cardboard from the recycle center in town. Most people were being patient, however the car in front of me seemed out of sorts and then I realized they were on the telephone. At least they were not texting!

My son Jason sent me a You Tube video today of a reenactment of a crash that killed a lot of people including a baby, which tore him up. The driver who caused the crash was sending a text message to a friend.

As I crossed the Tennessee River, the cool breeze coming in from the open windows picked up the scent of the new tar the state was pouring on the highway under construction downtown. Oddly it was a pleasant smell. I was amazed at the number of orange barrels lined up along the highway and was reminded of the black kerosene lanterns that lit up the roads when I was a child marking a construction zone.

Coming home, I passed the National Cemetery and saw the symmetry and angles of the headstones lined up one hill after another. The sun setting behind them cast a shadow so that the number of tombs appeared doubled. Out of place were the satellite discs standing behind the offices at the cemetery - beautiful mountain stone building and huge gray discs?

And then I was driving toward town through the university and there was no car, no student, no one in sight but I kept to the speed limit and drifted toward downtown only to look in my rear view mirror and see a car behind me being pulled over by a Chattanooga police car. I guess 25 was too slow for the person behind me.

Happy I was paying attention, I was even more happy when I passed through town to be rewarded with a magnificent sunset. Yellow skies, low clouds orange on the bottom and purple on top and I watched as a breeze passed by me and picked up a group of birds that flew together first swooping down then up then down again all in rhythm as if it were choreographed just for me.

The last thing I saw before I made the climb up my mountain was a crowd in the stadium at the Lookouts baseball game. As I crossed back over the river, the stadium to my right almost close enough to touch I glanced at the scoreboard and heard the crowd cheer. Oh how I love a baseball game at night! And then I realized the last game I went to was over a year ago. How did the time fly? It was Jason and Laura's wedding announcement party and he threw out the first pitch - a treat Laura secured for him. What fun that was. The family laughs at me because I keep score of what each player does at bat. But I get the last laugh when they turn to me and say, "What'd he do last time?"

And so it wasn't a wasted evening. Time is never wasted. Every minute is precious and I'm thankful that I have special events, tranquil drives, beautiful sunsets, and special memories to remind me.