The Paper Bag Christmas (11 page)
I looked up to see Nurse Wimble, the bane of all patients and elves, standing in front of her chair, doing all she could to keep her composure as the words of the familiar tune broke free from her lips. Others soon joined in, standing one by one, and before we made it back to our spot everyone in the room was singing together.
As the song progressed, the angels each began to follow Katrina’s lead, removing their paper bags, revealing the tears that stained their young faces.
When the song ended the spotlight moved away from Katrina to a red and green blinking wheelchair making its way ever so slowly across the stage. Dr. Ringle, dressed as Santa, was headed for the microphone. Aaron was eager to hand it to him.
“I’ve heard it said that the true meaning of Christmas has been forgotten, that the Christmas spirit is dead.” Dr. Ringle’s deep Scottish voice echoed through the hall. “I think our Christmas pageant this evening would suggest otherwise.” He reached up and removed the red and white hat from his head and rested it in his lap. “With that in mind, I would like to announce a slight change to our proceedings. Due to the fact that it would spoil an otherwise perfect evening, Santa Claus will not be handing out presents to the children here at this event. Instead, gifts will be delivered to each room individually later this evening. Thank you all for joining us here tonight. Merry Christmas, and God bless you all.”
For some time afterward people just milled around the cafeteria wishing each other a Merry Christmas and congratulating one another for a great performance. I got the sense that no one really wanted to leave, that they somehow hoped the pageant and the feelings they felt would continue on indefinitely.
Everyone, including grumpy Nurse Wimble, felt something special that night, something magical. Only it wasn’t magic at all but the true spirit of Christmas, and it left us all with a desire to be better people, to be more giving and forgiving, and to reach out to those around us in all their unique and varied circumstances.
But all good things must come to an end, and eventually we had to go home. Aaron and I said goodbye to as many children as we could, wishing them all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Even though our time volunteering at the hospital was officially over, we hoped to return again soon to visit all of our new friends.
Katrina was especially sad to see us go, but she gave us both a big hug and wished us well.
“Mo,” she said as we were leaving, “thank you.”
I smiled, nodded, and then we went home to be together as a family for Christmas.
Somehow, not only for Christmas but all the long year through, the joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you. And the more you spend in blessing the poor and lonely and sad, the more of your heart’s possessing returns to you glad.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
I
t was barely seven o’clock in the morning on Christmas day when we heard the sirens blaring outside our house. Dad and Mom were still making breakfast in their pajamas, and none of the presents under the tree had been opened yet.
I peeked out through the kitchen window and saw Dr. Ringle waving frantically from the passenger seat of an orange and white ambulance.
“Dr. Ringle is here!” I shouted. “Hurry up, he wants something!”
When we got outside, Dr. Ringle explained that during the night Katrina’s condition had taken a drastic turn for the worse. “The headaches she had been complaining about for the past few days were because of pressure inside her skull,” he said. “The tumor has been growing rapidly over the last week, and it is now squeezing everything else out. We knew it would come to this eventually,” he continued gravely. “We just didn’t know when. She wants to see Mo, but I’m afraid there isn’t much time.”
Four weeks earlier I might have needed a little help understanding what he meant when he said “there isn’t much time.” But I had grown up a lot in those weeks, and now I understood perfectly well.
Katrina was going to die soon.
Dad and Mom agreed to let me go with Dr. Ringle in the ambulance back to the hospital. The rest of the family would change out of their pajamas and then drive over as quickly as they could in the station wagon.
With sirens roaring and lights spinning we made our way to the hospital in record time. It helped that there were very few cars and pedestrians out and about because of the holiday, which made it infinitely easier to plow through intersections and red lights without touching the brake pedal.
When we arrived at the hospital, the ambulance driver helped Dr. Ringle into his wheelchair, and then we raced inside the emergency entrance and up to the fifth floor. I slowed as I approached Katrina’s room. There, tacked to her door just below her nameplate, was the crayon-drawn sign: E.D.—12/79. I didn’t have an obvious reason to, but something compelled me to reach up and take it down. I pulled out the tack that held it in place and then followed Dr. Ringle into Katrina’s room.
Inside, a nurse was busy adjusting a monitor near the bed. Katrina was wired to an electronic device that blinked regularly with each new heartbeat. She was also hooked up to an IV through a large needle in her forearm. It was obvious that she was in a great deal of pain, but her eyes lit up when she saw me.
“You made it,” she said weakly, her mouth forming a faint smile.
“Of course—wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Merry Christmas.” I didn’t know what else to say. Then I remembered the paper in my hand that I’d just removed from her door, and I held it out to her. “Look,” I said. “You beat the doctors by a whole year!” She tried to laugh but it hurt too much. Instead of laughing she winced in pain.
“Mo, I wanted you to come so I could say thank you.”
“For last night? Oh, it was nothin’.”
“Not for last night. For
everything
. For helping Santa with my Christmas gift. It was pretty much the best gift ever.”
As usual I was a little confused. I hadn’t helped Dr. Ringle at all with her gift. I had not even gotten the red Christmas list from her like I’d been told.
“But Kat,” I exclaimed honestly, “I didn’t help him. Whatever he gave you for Christmas he did on his own.”
“Yes, you did,” she whispered, her voice growing more shallow with every breath. “And now I’d like to give you something for Christmas. I know it’s not much, but hopefully it will help you remember.”
She reached down over the side of the bed, straining to keep her head from moving too much, and pulled up a wooden box with a bow on top. I recognized the box as the one Madhu had carried the night before in the Christmas pageant.
“Open it,” she said softly as she lifted it across the bed and placed it in my hands.
Tears began to fall freely from my eyes before I even touched the lid. With my lips trembling and fingers shaking I lifted it open slowly to find a white, worn out paper bag, neatly folded up. Beside the bag was a red piece of paper all crumpled up in a ball.
I pulled the bag from the box first and unfolded it. There, as I’d seen so many times, were the three familiar holes—two for the eyes, one for the mouth.
Next I took out the red paper ball. It was the list I was supposed to collect from Katrina on my second visit to the hospital, the same one she swore was only for Santa to read. She had been sure that even Santa, no matter how magical he was, would never be able to give her what she wanted for Christmas. With surgical precision I unraveled the red paper. The back of the page, which was now heavily wrinkled, was full of familiar blank lines—the same lines I had once tried desperately to fill with just about every toy known to man. Flipping the ragged paper over I read anew the title, printed in bold typed letters across the top: “All I Want for Christmas Is . . .” I struggled then, as I wiped away the tears, to read the simple words that Katrina had written on the first line of the paper: A friend.
“Thank you Kat,” I said as I rubbed my eyes on my coat sleeve. “That’s the best Christmas gift I’ve ever gotten.” When I looked up at Katrina, she was smiling ever so slightly. Her eyes were closed, and she looked peaceful, happier than I’d ever seen her. “Kat?” When she didn’t reply I lifted my head just enough to observe that the monitor next to her bed had stopped blinking.
“She’s gone, lad,” said Dr. Ringle as he wheeled over and clasped my shoulder.
“I know,” I said. I was sad Katrina was gone but happy her pain was over and that she could be with her mom and grandfather again.
As I sat looking at her, a Christmas song stirred somewhere in my mind, and soon I was humming along as I remembered the words to one of the verses: “
Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care, and fit us for Heaven to live with Thee there
.”
Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
W
hat’re yous doing here on Christmas, little man?” asked Frank, the janitor-elf from the Bronx, as I sat down next to him in the hospital’s main lobby.
“Just waiting,” I said. “Dr. Ringle asked me to stay here until my parents arrive. A friend of mine passed away today. I came to say goodbye.”
“You ain’t talkin’ ’bout Kat B on floor five, are ya?”
“Katrina Barlow, yes, that’s her. Do you know her?”
“My kid brother introduced me to her when he was here. Haven’t seen much of her since then, ya know, but I’ve tried to say hi and what not when I’m up there cleanin’ the bat’rooms. Then this mornin’ I gets a call from old Doc Ringle, says he wants to meet me here. Said it had somethin’ to do with Katrina. So I guess we’re here for da same thing.”
I enjoyed talking to Frank very much—he was kind and thoughtful, even if he talked funny—but our conversation was cut short when my parents rushed through the hospital’s front doors with Aaron in tow.
“Mo?” said my mom when she saw me. “Is everything alright?”
“Yep. Everything is fine,” I said solemnly as I cradled the wooden box on my lap. “She . . . she passed away about twenty minutes ago.”
Mom and Dad were glad to see I was taking it so well, but they were understandably sad for the loss of my friend. “Dr. Ringle wants us all to go upstairs,” I continued. “Says he has a surprise for everyone.”
“Mind if I join yous guys?” asked Frank. “Doc wanted me up there in a few minutes anyway—said somethin’ ’bout a special Christmas gift.”
My family and Frank followed me back up to the fifth floor where Dr. Ringle was waiting in his wheelchair near the nurses’ station. Madhu’s parents were also waiting there.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re all here. Now we can get started,” declared Dr. Ringle.
“Started with what?” asked Aaron
“With what? Why, with the presents, lad. It is Christmas, after all! And what better way to celebrate Christ’s birth than to give gifts, just as the four wise men did so long ago!”
“But I thought the presents were gonna be given out last night?” I said.
“Aye, most of them were delivered last night, of course, by Ole Saint Nicholas himself. But there are a few very special gifts remaining for some very special people. Now come along, follow me.”
Dr. Ringle’s smile was never bigger than when he led all of us—me, Aaron, Mom and Dad, Frank, and Madhu’s parents—down the hallway to Madhu’s room.
“Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas,” bellowed Dr. Ringle as he pushed open the door without knocking. “And how are you on this fine morning?”
“Oh, very well,” said Madhu without hesitation. “Yes, I’m definitely doing quite fine. But I am wondering why all of you are here?”
“Well,” responded Dr. Ringle, “we’re here to deliver a little Christmas joy. You do want your Christmas gift, don’t you?”
“Oh,” Madhu said, blushing a little. “I assumed I was not getting one when you didn’t come last night. I saw you going to all the other rooms.”
“Ah, I see,” sighed Dr. Ringle. “And did you think that perhaps you wouldn’t get a present because you ripped up your Christmas list and threw it in the garbage?”
Madhu blinked hard. “How did you know I threw it in the garbage?” He looked over at Aaron and me, but we didn’t know either.
“Just answer the question, lad,” said the doctor.
Madhu nodded and quietly said, “Yes sir.”
“And did you rip up the list because you thought Santa wouldn’t bring you a gift on account of your religion?” asked Dr. Ringle. His eyes twinkled with kindness as he spoke.
Madhu nodded again.
“Madhukar, I apologize that your present was delayed, but I do have a very special gift for the wisest among wise men. It’s from Santa and one of his very special friends.”
With that, Dr. Ringle reached deep into the burgundy colored velvet sack that hung from the back of his wheelchair and pulled out a red piece of paper. To be more precise, it was lots of small pieces of paper, all taped together to form one complete puzzle.
“My list!” shouted Madhu. “How did you get it?”
“Ho, ho, ho! Just a little Christmas magic,” hollered Dr. Ringle.
Everyone gathered around to see what Madhu had written on his Christmas list. It was difficult to decipher through all of the broken edges of paper. Madhu’s father was the first to sound it out.
“All I want for Christmas is . . . a new liver, so I can go home with my family,” he said.
Madhu’s mother sobbed when she heard the words. “Dr. Ringle, you should not joke about such things,” she cried. “It is cruel to raise a boy’s hopes over a gift you cannot give.”
“Mrs. Amburi, there is something else you should hear as well.” Dr. Ringle reached again into his bag and pulled out another piece of paper, this one white and folded up neatly. “Here Madhu, it is addressed to you. Would you read it aloud?”
Madhu took the note from the doctor and unfolded it carefully. On the top of the page was a crayon-drawn picture, a self-portrait of sorts, of a young girl with beautiful long brown hair and bright green eyes. She had wings like an angel and seemed to be singing.
Madhu cleared his throat and began reading slowly.