New Eyes

It was the Christmas that I discovered that my sight is not very good at all. It was the year that I looked at the world with “new eyes.”

I left my two young boys with the babysitter to give “Santa” a much needed opportunity to “convene with the elves” at the shopping mall. For some reason, I chose to drive into Oklahoma to find a mall, although shopping in Dallas was the same distance in the opposite direction. I would have had many more choices in Dallas. Perhaps I was guided by my dislike of crowds; or perhaps I was guided by Fate.

I wandered through that shopping mecca filled with glittering lights, bright red and green decorations, and perfume saleswomen trying to spritz me with cloying scents. Beside a Christmas tree, I noticed some women standing at a long table. The sign on the table said, “Toys for Tots” in big red letters. On the table were cards with the names of needy children, their ages, and the gift they most wanted from Santa.

Suddenly, my heart was overflowing with that unexplainable urge to give. We were so fortunate that year. My husband still had a job, although half of the people in our county were standing in the unemployment lines. The company that was the largest employer in our town had shut down, leaving many of the people we knew without work at holiday time. My husband did not work for that company, thank goodness.

Though I didn’t have a lot of cash (and I had been saving for months), I knew that some child needed me. Some child I did not know would not experience the magic of Christmas without my help. My children had more than enough action figures littering the floor. I could spare the change.

One particular card caught my eye. “Jessica” was three and wanted a Barbie doll. Oh, snap! I had always wanted a little girl, and I would have named her “Jessica!” I would have hoped she wouldn’t like Barbie dolls, but there was nothing I could do about that. A Barbie doll it would be.

I took her card with a smile on my face, and dashed to the nearest toy store. A beautiful, blond-haired Barbie doll in a red dress was waiting just for Jessica. I purchased her and had her gift-wrapped. After leaving her at the tree, I finished my shopping for my own two children. They were so young, they would never notice that they didn’t get quite as much as I had planned to give them.

Christmas that year was joyous, as it always is when there are gleeful children in the house. My boys were thrilled by the gifts they received from Santa. I was thrilled that somewhere Jessica had wakened that morning to find the toy of her dreams.

Later that afternoon, I stepped out into the front yard, and saw the little girl who lived across the street. The family were renters, and they were dirt poor. She was sitting glumly on her front porch, batting at a rock with a stick. I asked what Santa had brought.

“He didn’t find me,” she said, as she stood and went into the house.

Later, talking to her mother, I discovered that the child had gotten nothing at all for Christmas. Her husband was out of work, they couldn’t pay the rent, and all they had eaten for a Christmas meal was bread sopped in milk.

That pretty much took the starch out of me. I had been basking in the glow of my ability to give to a child I didn’t know — but I had not even seen that a child I knew had needed me.

I was ashamed of myself for my lack of sight; and determined to do something about it. I gathered people I knew in the community (and many I didn’t know) to start a program for the next Christmas that would meet the needs of the children in our own community. The Littlest Angel Program is still going strong, because of a little girl that I didn’t see.

As you sit enjoying your Christmas with your families, please remember that there are many people around us who are less fortunate. Open your eyes to see them, and open your hearts to give.

Merry Christmas.

Related posts:

1. Poor Barbie
2. Old Christmas
3. I Refuse To Give Up On The Good Medicine Project
4. A Cook Can’t Have Too Many Potholders
5. Anticipation

Tagged as: Christmas, Give From The Heart, Littlest Angel