Being Santa Claus : What I Learned About the True Meaning of Christmas (9781101600528) (8 page)

Just then, we noticed Ashley standing timidly in the office doorway. The assistant principal invited her in and closed the door behind her.

I walked over to our daughter and said, “Ashley, you don’t want to climb the rope in gym class?”

“No,” she said quietly.

“Why not?” I asked her gently. I put my hand on her shoulder, wordlessly assuring her that it was safe to speak her mind.

“Well, I watched that safety video with you, and it said that if you’re working more than six feet off the ground, you have to be wearing a safety harness in case you fall.”

The assistant principal looked a little confused, so I explained to him that I worked as an industrial safety consultant and that Ashley would often sit down and watch the training videos with me.

“So, Ashley,” I turned back to face her, “that still doesn’t explain why you won’t climb the rope.”

“Well, they want me to climb higher than six feet, and I don’t have a safety harness on.”

I hadn’t realized that Ashley paid any attention to these workplace safety films, let alone that she understood them and remembered so many details. I was reminded of that early lesson I’d learned my first season as Santa Claus: Never underestimate the observational powers of children. They don’t miss a thing!

For a brief moment, I felt pretty amazed at my daughter, until my admiration suddenly turned into serious concern. I looked over at the assistant principal. “How high is it that you’re expecting her to climb?”

The assistant principal didn’t look at all troubled by the question. “Oh, the gymnasium ceiling’s only about fifteen feet off the ground.”

“And you want them to climb all the way to the top?” I asked.

“If they can, yes.”

“So what happens if they fall?”

He stammered, “Well, we have mats—”

I interrupted, “Wait a minute! Are you talking about those thin blue pads? They’re only an inch of foam! What’s that going to do if a kid falls from fifteen feet up?”

The assistant principal started looking uncomfortable, and I was furious. “I think Ashley is right,” I said. “The kids should be in safety harnesses if they’re going to climb.”

The assistant principal tried to go back on the offensive. “Mr. Lizard, that’s not the reason you came in today. We need Ashley to listen to her teachers and climb the rope when she’s told to.”

“No,” I said forcefully. This was ridiculous! “She’s not going to be told that because I don’t want my daughter to get injured. You know, we all say our children are the most precious things in the world, and all of their teachers in school talk about how these kids are our future. And yet, we’re not doing a very good job protecting them here. Even worse, you’re not listening to what Ashley is saying—
and she’s right
!

“The Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires that grown men who are working more than six feet off the ground either have a guardrail around them or wear a harness in case they fall. And you’re mandating that little kids climb even higher with nothing but an inch of foam padding to break their fall? That’s preposterous. So, no, Ashley is not climbing that rope unless she’s wearing a harness.” I finished my rant in a huff of anger.

You can probably imagine the ensuing controversies, budgetary analyses, arguments at parent-teacher meetings, stories in the media, and fund-raising events. But finally, Ashley got her harness. The school installed a special pulley system in the gymnasium, and parents volunteered to hold the other end of the harness as children climbed the rope in gym class.

I’ll always remember how proud I felt that my daughter had the courage to stick to her convictions and not do something she felt was wrong. She proved that even a seven-year-old child can be responsible for significant changes in the world. And truths like that lie at the very heart of what Santa Claus believes. Every child is special, every child is important, and every child deserves our respect. No child’s opinions or ideas should ever be stifled or ignored.

Because ultimately, as Santa knows, the smallest among us can sometimes make the biggest difference.

F
OR THREE YEARS, MY EXPERIENCES BEING
Santa Claus provided countless moments of joy for me. I honestly could not imagine feeling anything else while wearing the red suit. Unfortunately, I was about to discover that being Santa Claus could also break my heart.

The Christmas season of 1995 started out on a very positive note. Word of mouth continued to spread about me, and between new families and return engagements, I had more than doubled my total number of appointments from the previous year. I still did not charge for appearing, requiring only that the family show me a receipt for their children’s charity donation. The thought
that I could help make a difference in that way was one of my favorite parts about being Santa Claus.

With that feeling of holiday giving in my heart, I agreed to a special request that year. At the time, Linda worked as a nurse for a children’s hospital in Charleston. Her fellow staff members knew that I played Santa Claus during the holiday season, and they asked me to come to the hospital for a day and visit the children.

The hospital folks told me that I would not need to hand out presents. They already had ample toys for the children to play with, and with five floors worth of young patients, it presented too much of a logistical challenge to carry around that many gifts during my rounds. So instead, the nurses would tell the patients that Santa just stopped by to visit and have a quick chat with all the children.

As in many hospitals, different floors specialized in different medical treatments. Some patients had minor illnesses and injuries, but others had more serious conditions that would keep them there through the holidays. The nurses informed me whenever I was about to talk to a child who would not be home for Christmas, and I assured these kids I would bring their presents to the hospital. This alleviated a lot of concerns from children who feared not getting presents for Christmas if they weren’t home in their own beds on Christmas Eve.

I had been visiting for a couple of hours when my
nurse guide took me to the burn unit. As a child, I was badly burned when my mother accidentally tripped over me and spilled a pot of boiling water on my shoulder, and I have a scar to this very day. So I felt a special empathy for the pain and discomfort those children in the burn ward had to go through, especially when their dressings needed to be changed and their wounds cleaned. I remembered how intensely painful that part of the healing process had been. But nothing could have prepared me for Timothy.

I visited a few other children in the burn ward first, most with minor injuries and a few bandages in various places. I spoke with all of them, and they appeared generally upbeat and excited about Christmas, despite being in the hospital. They all seemed comforted by the fact that they’d be going home fairly soon.

As the nurse led me to a room at the end of the hallway, she stopped before taking me inside. “This last patient is Timothy,” she said in a barely audible whisper, almost choking back tears. “They brought him in with severe burns over most of his body. He’s very weak, and the doctors don’t expect Timothy to make it until Christmas.”

“Oh, my God,” I said, choking back some tears of my own.

“We’d understand if you want to skip this room,” she tried to sound as supportive as she could. “After all, you didn’t volunteer to visit children in critical condition.”

“I couldn’t do that to him,” I said, feeling absolutely committed to going into Timothy’s room. “Santa Claus doesn’t care how sick a child is, and maybe my visit will help him get better.”

“You’re a wonderful man,” the nurse put her arm on my shoulder and leaned in closely. “There’s one very important thing, though.” She looked over her shoulder to make certain Timothy’s hospital room door was closed. “Timothy doesn’t know how bad his condition is, and his parents don’t want him to know. So please act like he’ll be getting better and leaving the hospital soon.”

I didn’t like lying to any child, but I respected the wishes of Timothy’s parents. “All right, I understand.” I got myself ready as the nurse knocked on the door.

“Timothy?” she said quietly as she pushed open the door a little. “Are you awake? You have a special visitor.”

“Who is it?” I heard a small, weak voice ask from inside the room.

“Well,” said the nurse with a warm smile, “why don’t I let him introduce himself?” She opened the door wide and motioned me to come in.

Usually I enter a room with a hearty “Ho, ho, ho!” But this time, I walked in softly and came right over to Timothy’s bed. “Hello, Timothy. Do you know who I am?”

“You’re Santa Claus,” he said, smiling. Bandages covered all the parts of Timothy that I could see other
than his head. Fortunately, Timothy’s face seemed undamaged, and I could see that he was a handsome boy. From the nurse’s description, I had imagined Timothy looking much worse. But his smile and bright eyes made me believe for at least one hopeful moment that the doctors were all wrong and that this little boy would be just fine.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” said the nurse. “Santa, you just come and get me if you or Timothy need anything.”

I sat down next to the bed. “So, Timothy, how old are you?”

“I’m eight,” he said, still sounding weak. I noticed all the machines around his room, the IV drip, and a balloon in the corner that read “Get Well Soon” tied to a chair.

I chose my next words carefully: “Is there anything special that you’d like to tell Santa?”

Timothy didn’t respond. I waited for a few seconds, noticing him looking out the window and realizing that he might be trying to think of what to say. It took a while for Timothy to turn back in my direction, and still he appeared to be hesitant to say anything.

I was about to say something to break the silence when, finally, Timothy looked into my eyes with a very serious expression on his face. “Santa, I have something important to ask you,” he said quietly.

“Sure, Timothy. Ask me anything you want to.”

“I know that I’m going to die—”

I interrupted him immediately with a smile. “Now, who told you that?”

“I know,” he said with a composure far beyond his eight short years. “I hear the doctors and my mom and dad talking when they think I’m asleep. And it’s okay. I know the fire was bad, and I got really hurt. I know I’m gonna die very soon…”

I started to disagree, but something in his eyes stopped me.

“They say that when you die, you become an angel, right?” He waited for me to answer.

I paused for a second, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. “Yes, Timothy, a lot of people believe that.”

“Well, I don’t want to come back as an angel, Santa. I know that being an angel is supposed to be nice and stuff, but what I really want is to come back as an elf and make toys with you at the North Pole. Santa, can I come back as an elf?”

I froze. I didn’t know how to respond to Timothy’s request. So many things raced through my mind. I didn’t want to contradict or interfere with any religious beliefs that Timothy’s parents had taught him. And of course, how could I possibly promise to make him a mythical elf?

I found myself turning to stare out the window and think, just as Timothy had done moments before. I could
feel Timothy watching me with such hope and expectation on his innocent little face. I had to tell him
something
. As the seconds ticked by, I decided to stall him until I could talk to his parents or maybe some of the nurses to see how they thought I should answer his request.

“Well, Timothy, I’ll have to check with my boss…” I looked up and pointed at the ceiling. “He’s the one who makes these kinds of decisions. But I’ll come back and let you know what He says.”

“Okay, thanks,” Timothy said, smiling. We continued talking for a few more minutes, and then the nurse came back to get me. I told her to make sure to bring me back to see Timothy before I left in the afternoon.
Hopefully by then,
I thought,
I’ll come up with a way to answer his question.

The nurse led me to other floors and many, many more children. I had visited maybe three-quarters of the patients, having been passed along from nurse to nurse with each new floor I visited, when the nurse from the burn ward walked up to me. Seeing her grim expression, I felt a knot in my stomach even before she told me the news. “I know you wanted to visit Timothy once more before you left, but he just passed away.”

I started to weep, right there in the middle of the hallway. A small voice in my head told me to hold it together, that it was inappropriate for Santa Claus to be
seen crying. The nurse seemed to instinctively know what I needed. “Here,” she said, putting her arm around my shoulder and leading me down the hallway, “there’s a room where you can be alone for a little while.”

I honestly don’t recall whether she led me to a hospital room, a break room, a chapel, or a broom closet. All I remember was the nurse closing the door and then falling to my knees. Tears rolled down my face for a few minutes as I prayed for Timothy—that he find the peace that he so truly deserved. And I prayed for myself, for strength enough to make it through the rest of my time at the hospital without breaking down crying.