Here Comes Santa Claus
Wallis on Santa’s lap putting in a plug for a teddy bear.
Chapter 13
It was our last Christmas in North Carolina. Kevin was eight, and Wallis was five. That would make Drew a one-year-old, newly mastering the art of walking. It was the week before Christmas, and our good friends, David and Denise, had invited us over to their home, along with two other families, for a kid-friendly Christmas celebration.
Among our four families, we had ten little kids—with Kevin being the oldest. While we were transplants to the area, the other families were all natives. Southern to the bone.
I love Christmas in the south. I love celebrating Christmas with southerners. They masterfully blend the richness of formality with the warmth of tradition. And while I will always love the smell of the Nebraska evergreens that draped our mantel when I was a kid, I’ve grown to appreciate the beauty of a southern mantel adorned with magnolia leaves. (And I even learned the glistening glow on the leaves comes from a special mayonnaise rubbing.)
So here we were, with our adopted southern friends, enjoying the warmth of a roaring fire and the smell of cinnamon-apple cider on the stove.
The kids played games and sipped their drinks out of fancy, glass Christmas mugs, while the parents guarded every sip to ensure that not a drop of the holiday juice ended up on their velvety best. Kevin ran around, his shirt untucked, with two fistfuls of peanuts. Wallis, with her long, flowing hair, quietly smiled—absorbing everything that was taking place. And Drew stuffed his cheeks with crackers, remembering to swallow every so often.
It was, indeed, the perfect party.
And then, the perfect party got even MORE perfect!
“What’s that?” exclaimed our host, David, to all of the children. “Did anyone hear bells?”
Bells? Even the adults looked a little curious and tried to figure out what David was talking about.
“There it is again,” he said. “I think I hear bells out back!”
Instantly, every child scurried to the sliding glass doors at the back of the house, pushing their frosting-covered faces to the windows—desperately trying to see into the darkness beyond. Wondering. About bells. And the possibility of . . .
Ding-Dong!
Now ten pairs of little feet went scurrying to the front door.
Ten pairs of eyes. Wide open.
And then it happened. David opened the front door.
“Ho, Ho, Ho!”
It was Santa! It was Santa! Apparently, he and his reindeer had just flown in from the North Pole. So while the reindeer rested in the backyard, Santa was going to enjoy some time with us!
And then Santa, after finding the perfect chair to plop his tired body in, did something I will never forget. He patiently took the children, one-by-one, sat each one on his lap, and talked to them. He conversed with them. Individually. For a good five to ten minutes each. And these weren’t talks centered on what each child wanted to find in his or her stocking. (Although Wallis managed to get in her request for a new stuffed teddy bear!) Santa talked to the boys and girls—with each child—about their lives, their hopes, and their dreams.
Santa listened. Santa cared. And Santa gave them reason to believe. In everything. Including themselves.
While the adults attempted to do typical grown-up things like clear dishes and tie shoelaces, we were all taken aback by Santa. He wasn’t the typical white-bearded, rotund man in a red suit we were accustomed to seeing at the mall. His beard looked pretty darn real. When he bent down to pick up the next child, you could see his long underwear, which didn’t look like anything you could purchase in our neck of the woods.
“He’s amazing,” I whispered to David. “Thanks.”
“We didn’t do anything,” was his only reply.
Something magical was taking place.
After the children took turns with our visitor from the North Pole, Santa then talked to us as a group. He told us about his wife, about his life, and about how happy he was to be with us.
And then, sadly, he told us he needed to leave because he still had other families to visit that night. The children took their turns hugging Santa good-bye. So did the adults.
And then Santa stepped into the darkness of the backyard as he called out to the reindeer.
The last thing we heard was the sound of sleigh bells in the distant loblolly pines of our friends’ backyard.
On our short drive home, with the three children in the backseat of the car, not one of us spoke a word, until . . .
“There’s Santa!” exclaimed an excited Kevin who was peering out the backseat window.
And as I pulled the car over to the side of the road so we could all look, I saw what Kevin saw. A flashing red light moving slowly through the Carolina sky. Moving from right to left. Blink. Blink. Blink.
A typical observer might have thought it was the Duke University Life Flight helicopter.
But not my children.
“I see Rudolf!” exclaimed Wallis.
Drew tried to wiggle out of his car seat to see.
I looked up in the sky at the blinking red light moving silently through the moonlit night. Then I looked back and saw my three children gazing up at the world above them. Eyes bulging. Mouths open.
“See you next week, Santa!” Kevin yelled out.
I looked back again at the kids and realized this moment had little to do with what they saw.
It had everything to do with what they believed.
Once I left the recovery room and my best friend forever, nurse Brian, I quickly made a new BFF for the next four days. My morphine drip.
I have never had a friend so loyal, so comforting, and so gosh-darn great to be around. My new BFF never left my bedside, took care of me around the clock, and helped ease every worry that might have consumed my usually overactive brain. Considering all I had been through, things were pretty euphoric.
So euphoric that the sensation I had in the recovery room—that feeling of being on top of a mountain and looking out toward the world beyond—continued throughout most of my hospital stay. And when the morphine was working overtime, I’d sometimes enjoy visits from flying dragons, a flock of geese, and a group of pointy-eared folks who would stand on top of my television.
I can’t say I recall many other details those first couple of postsurgical days.
I do recall, certainly, my doctor coming to talk to me in my pediatric room the morning following surgery. I kept hearing him say the words “lymph nodes” over and over again thinking he was trying to share bad news with me.
Ultimately, I realized he was giving me positive news about my lymph nodes. They appeared clean. As did everything he could visually observe. We’d have to wait for the pathology report to really understand if my cancer had spread beyond the prostate.
In the meantime, he left me alone with my new friend.
I spent most of my days in the hospital quite content. I didn’t sit and obsess about things. As best as I can recall, I simply enjoyed the tranquility and view of the world inside my head.
After a few days, much to my dismay, they kicked me out of the hospital. I actually asked if I could stay one more day, but according to my health insurance provider, it was time to leave. And leaving meant saying good-bye to my BFF.
And hello to a big bottle of painkillers. I also got my first real introduction to the body I was now attached to—held together with staples and sporting some new, temporary add-ons to my plumbing system. Suddenly, living minute to minute was a struggle.
Once I was home, everything was difficult. The pillow was in the wrong place. I couldn’t reach a blanket. I was hot. I was cold. I was sweaty. I was constipated. I couldn’t sit up. I couldn’t reach the remote control. I didn’t want to talk on the phone.
And truthfully, the panoramic view I thought was so stunning back in the pediatric ward was now looking more like a big, vast horizon with nothing but unreachable dreams.
The second day home, my doctor called to go over the findings from my pathology report. That didn’t help how I was feeling. The cancer was far more invasive than he could see visually during the surgery.
“You have a very aggressive cancer that was on a path to kill you,” I remember him saying. “But your margins are questionably close so they aren’t sure if the cancer has spread.”
All I could imagine was more surgery. Radiation. Or both. I realized, at that moment, I hadn’t thought about the postoperative realities.
“So what do we do?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, Jim. We don’t need to address that today. For now, you heal. You’re coming out of a big surgery. Let’s let your body mend, and then we’ll run more tests to see if there is any indication of cancer cells. But for now, rest and heal,” he told me.
I was frustrated. I wasn’t expecting that kind of outcome. I was expecting resolution so I could move forward. Physical pain and emotional
stress—at the same time—are a weighty combination. I was sinking.
Fortunately, my son Kevin gave me a firm slap in the face.
He was talking to me about music. Specifically, he was talking about some song lyrics that moved him.
They were from a song titled “Sunny Hours” by the Long Beach Dub Allstars, and in typical Kevin style, he started singing. I’m not sure what I loved more, his voice or the one particular line that meant so much to him.
“. . . never count the gloomy hours, I let them slip away . . .”
“You and I are exactly the same, Dad,” Kevin said to me. “Don’t you think?”
I looked at him and pondered his youthful wisdom. Clearly, there is a long bridge between the world of a teenage boy and his father. But Kevin’s question to me hit home.
Who, exactly, was I? I had always been a person who believed. I believed in people. I believed in my feelings. I believed in a purpose and a reason for everything—good or bad—in life. I believed in my abilities. I believed in a person’s word.
And I believed in myself.
Kevin’s observation came when I most needed it. I needed to believe.
Not a blind belief that all would be dandy and we’d soon be singing around the campfire in a few weeks. It was a belief grounded in strength, with unwaivering faith that everything I was encountering had a purpose. Equally important was a belief that I had the inner strength to walk through whatever fires were ahead.
Kevin’s message to believe was as powerful as the one Karen had given me a few weeks before.
Maybe they were connected?