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Miracle of the Carols (12 Days of Christmas W/O)Dec 15 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line On the Third Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me - Three French hens - I couldn't find their Can Can skirts, so wrote this instead.
Christmas! Each time the season rolls around, I think of my Grandmother’s house atop a hill in Connecticut -– aunts and uncles, cousins, snow, a country church, a goodie-packed buffet, and a marvelous Christmas dinner -- children at a table by themselves in the kitchen, adults feasting in the dining room. Wonderful days. Those scenes are in sharp contrast to another Christmas that I spent in the Maximum-Security Ward at the Arizona State Hospital. No! I wasn’t a patient, however, a member of my husband’s family had been declared a menace to society and was committed there. For 2 ½ years my husband and I made weekly visits to him and grieved at all the abnormalities we observed there. Remember the picture “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?” It did not exaggerate conditions in a mental ward one bit. I watched a man, who had murdered his wife and stuffed her parts into an ice cooler, blubbering and crawling on the floor. Another man would hold an imaginary Bible in his hands, while speaking loudly in tongues. A dear old man came up to ME every week, begging for a nickel, another mooched cigarettes from me, though he couldn’t hold one in his trembling lips. I gladly gave each what he wanted, while watching another poor soul yelling, “Onward, onward,” as he ran and literally dragged a protesting fellow-patient along behind him. Around and around the ward they would go. Pitiful. Sad. With heaviness, I realized that once upon a time these lost souls had been children, children who loved Christmas! So, naturally, when the holiday season rolled around, I got an idea how to brighten this ward up a bit. Obtaining permission from the authorities, my husband and I gathered about 20 of our friends, mostly from the choir, and stormed the doors of the psycho ward at the appointed time, on the THIRD day of Christmas, to serenade them with Carols. That night the ward was decorated with lights and garlands and there definitely was a holiday spirit there, yet the patients sat around the place, sullen and seemingly unaware of anything going on, except for devouring the cupcakes and cups of punch! I had made a cassette tape (high tech stuff, then) of piano introductions and accompaniments to every Christmas Carol or Song that I could think of. However, the recreation room at the hospital had a piano, so I plunked myself down and accompanied them live. My friends began singing the old familiar Carols and gradually a change started taking place. Toes began tapping, heads began bobbing, smiles appeared, and some gruff old husky voices began chiming in with us. My husband’s relative was so proud and animated, running around seating people, like a Maître d' in a swank restaurant. It was amazing what those tunes did to that miserable, urine-reeking, place. It came alive, the colored lights twinkled more brightly and even the artificial garlands seemed to emit the heavenly aroma of pine trees. Did I mention the tears? Oh, yes, many tears began flowing down hardened and wrinkled faces as memories and realizations of happier times flowed into the hearts of men who had lost touch with reality. For a brief moment, all of us were caught up in the beauty of the Christmas Spirit. How exuberant my friends and I were to be taking part in this exhilarating moment in time. Little did we realize what was yet to come! One of the Superintendents approached us and asked if we would sing in the young people’s ward. Of course we would, never having dreamed that there was such a ward. After our farewells to the men, we followed a hospital employee through heavy locked doors, through more locked doors, until we arrived at a huge room filled with young people. The scene before us in that room was much like the one we had just left, except those faces and bodies were still attractive, not yet ravaged by time. Also, there were girls in there. Believe me, when we saw this sad, motley group, each of us wanted to cry and scream, “Oh, no, this shouldn’t be!” But it was. There was no piano in the youths’ ward, so we used my tape for the accompaniment, and once our voices began filling the room, we encountered another marvelous response. Those kids sang along with us, smiling and laughing and hugging! Yes, they hugged one another and even hugged many of us. Everyone seemed electrically charged in that ward! Except for one patient; a tall, slim young woman about 19, whom I think of as the “Pretzel Girl.” There she stood, all by herself, with her legs twisted around each other and her arms wrapped around herself. Her big brown eyes were cast to the floor and she seemed oblivious to what was going on. You’d have thought she was a statue. A little lost deer! A frightened faun! A Pretzel Girl! When we would approach her to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, she would immediately scamper away to stand rigidly somewhere else. It hurt so much to see her. What on earth could have happened to this child to make her so unresponsive, so tied up within herself? But then it happened! We had sung perhaps six Carols, when suddenly, like a streak of lightning, she bolted over to the nurses’ station, which was closed-in with shatterproof windows that had small openings in them to speak or reach through. Our little deer pounded and pounded on a window, jumping up and down, while uttering loud, guttural, and completely unintelligible sounds! The nurses acted quickly. They knew just what she wanted, cajoling her with ”Wait a second, dear. We’ll get them for you.” We waited, also, in a state of shock, as this scene played out almost in slow motion. My tape continued filling the room with the refrains of tunes, perhaps “White Christmas,” or it could have been “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” I don’t really recall. But I do recall our amazement when they passed a pad of paper and a pencil through the window opening. She grabbed it, eagerly, and immediately began to scrawl something on the page. It was in SHORTHAND! Honestly, I recognized that and called my friend, Mary, over to transcribe it. What on earth could she be telling us? Mary translated and we were stunned, thrilled, and pressed into immediate action, for the four little words my Pretzel Girl had written down in shorthand were, Joy to the World.” She was choosing her own favorite Carol! I fast-forwarded the tape and we all, along with nurses and patients, began filling the room with the marvelous resonance of: Joy to the World, the Lord has Come. Let earth receive her King, Let ev-er-y heart prepare Him room And he’ven and nature sing, And he’ven and nature sing, And he’ven and he’ven and nature sing. Oh, neither heaven, nature, nor the Mormon Tabernacle Choir could have topped that rendition of the beloved, old Christmas Carol. Feet were stomping in time with the beat, the ceiling was dripping with musical notes, and there was not a dry eye in the room. Kids were sobbing and, once again, hugging, ---- and our little girl? How I wish I could tell you that her voice swelled above all the others with a timbre that thrilled us to the core! That’s what Hollywood would have done with this scene. But Hollywood might have missed the tears that flowed down her face, like Christmas stars sparkling on a frosty winter’s night. And they may have missed the significance of her upraised arms and untangled legs, her brown eyes gazing heavenward, and her smile that dazzled the entire place with its beauty, like a glorious rainbow after a violent storm. But we didn’t miss the dazzle or the unbending of our Pretzel Gal. Our hearts were filled with unspeakable joy. And when I placed my arm around her, I received the sweetest hug in return! What a night. What a miracle! I will never forget all those sad, yet smiling, patients and the little lost deer who found her way, for a short time, at least! That truly was a miraculous third day of Christmas. ================== Thank you for reading and may you all find joy and your own miracle during this glorious season. Lorace ©2002 ================== This was my Third Day of Christmas entry into Jackai’s Twelve Days of Christmas Write-off. I’m so grateful to Jackai for permitting me to participate. Please be sure to tune in to the fourth day of Christmas, which will be brought to you by –- ta da! –drumroll -- JanKP on December 17th. Click in to http://www.epinions.com/user-jackai He is posting the links as the days come along. Don’t miss these other writers’ entries – they are bound to be great. Day 01: Lambchops Day 02: Granniemose Day 03: Lorace (that’s me) Day 04: jankp Day 05: chriswillyv Day 06: cletta1201 Day 07: artbyjude Day 08: dedemw Day 09: prfstars Day 10: jackai (the host!) Day 11: Lynus Day 12: katybrighteyes I have to admit – I copied the “ta-da – drumroll “– from someone else’s Review. (I forget whose) I thought it was cute.  |
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