THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 25, 1994 TAG: 9412250044
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: PAUL SOUTH
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
The woman walked, head held high, out of the cold and rain of a late December day. She came through the door of the Jasper Fraternal Order of Police, and approached the table. The middle-aged woman was accompanied by her father.
``I was wondering if I could get some help for my boys for Christmas,'' she said.
I had heard requests like hers before over the past years when I worked in Alabama. My former newspaper - the Daily Mountain Eagle - held an annual drive to provide coats, toys and shoes for needy children in Walker County, Ala., home to some of Alabama's wealthiest, and poorest, people.
But this woman was different.
I asked if she received any welfare or food stamps.
``No,'' she said. ``I make $100 a week as a maid . . . if I work every day.''
I knew we could help.
Evelyn Sandlin, one of our account representatives, started filling two bags with gifts that boys age 10 and 14 would love. Basketballs. Air Jordans. Walkmans.
The mother and her father waited patiently. She was wearing a thin jacket over a housedress, and worn house slippers. His shoes and jacket were worn and torn.
``Would you like to look for a coat or a pair of shoes?'' I asked.
``Well, I sure would like to find a new coat to wear to church,'' she responded.
``Me too?'' the father asked, and they went to it.
Within a few minutes, she had found a brown below-the-knee-length coat. She stood in front of a full-length mirror and beamed.
Later, she and her father found new shoes. Within a moment, Evelyn brought two large bags filled with Christmas treasures for the woman's children.
The woman, her face full of dignity, humility and courage, burst into tears. She put strong arms around my neck and said, ``God bless you, son.''
She brushed away her tears, hugged others nearby, and walked out the door to celebrate a merry Christmas with her father, and her children. For the first time in a long while, I guessed, this would be a merry Christmas for the family.
The emotion of the moment was too much. I went home, and turned on music. Christmas music. And tears came, hard.
I had seen hundreds like the woman and her father, people of humility and grace, who for the most part were poor not because they were lazy or didn't care, but because a mine had closed, or a mill had shut down, or the only job to be found was cleaning for others. But when the tall, middle-aged woman said, ``God bless you, son,'' it was too much.
I called my mom, still in tears, and thanked her and my father for allowing us never to go without, on Christmas or any other day. And I thanked her for giving us a heart that hurt for the suffering of others, and the knowledge that but for the grace of God, we would walk in a pair of worn-out slippers.
It has been a year since I saw the woman walking proudly away in her new church coat, her father in his new shoes, each carrying a bag of gifts for the boys. I wonder this year if there will be gifts under the tree of her home.
But I know there is a gift that remains in her heart.
Despite all of her pain, and the difficulty she must have had rearing two boys on $100 a week, she never lost her dignity, or her grace.
That, in a sense, is the essence of Christmas. Swaddled in the humility of a Judean stable, there endures the message of grace.
Amazing grace. by CNB