Christmas Miracles (16 page)

W
henever seventy-three-year-old Lanette Wil-lert tells the story of her Christmas miracle, her voice grows soft and you can see tears begin to well up in the corners of her eyes; for even though it took place many years ago, the memory of that long-ago Christmas remains as fresh in her mind as if it had occurred only yesterday.

When she was a young girl, Lanette's family lived in a small town in Minnesota, far enough north where they seldom had to worry whether or not they would have a white Christmas. She was Lanette Petersen then, and she remembers December 1943 as seeming particularly cold and beset with one blizzard after another.

“I was sixteen that winter and considered myself quite a grown lady,” Lanette said. “Because so many of our hometown boys had enlisted to fight the Nazis and the Japanese in the war, I read the paper and listened to the news on the radio so I could take part in conversations with the adults who gathered to discuss current events at the soda fountain and the restaurant. And I never missed going to church every Sunday to pray for all the GIs—and especially our hometown boys—and ask God that they come home safely. Since Christmas was just around the corner, the church was going to have a couple of special programs to remind everyone of the true spirit of Christmas, which was to bring peace to Earth.”

Lanette's little brother, Karl, was going to play a piano solo at the Sunday school program. “We were so proud of Karl,” she said. “He was only ten years old, but he could really play the piano. He had started lessons when he was seven, and by the time he was eight, folks in town were calling him a little genius. He had played solos at several school band concerts and even a couple of times with the adults at the summer concerts in the park. At the Christmas Sunday school program that December, Karl would first play ‘Away in a Manger' as a solo, then the third and fourth graders would assemble around the piano and Karl would accompany their singing of the carol. Of course, being Lutherans, we knew that Martin Luther had written ‘Away in a Manger,' so this really had special meaning to us.”

Every night Karl would practice, perfecting his talent, improving his skill. In those days, families provided most of their own entertainment in the evenings, and the Petersen family had little Karl on the keys to supplement the radio or phonograph.

“Dad and Mom—Virgil and Dorothy Petersen— would usually read books or magazines in the evenings, and sometimes, after homework, I would listen to some news or comedy shows on the radio,” Lanette said, “but Karl provided excellent background music for whatever the family was doing.”

For many years afterward, Lanette blamed herself for what occurred late one afternoon as she was walking home from her part-time job at the soda fountain.

“Karl had hung around the store waiting to walk home with me,” she said. “Although Mr. Monson had a sign tacked to the magazine rack that warned, ‘This isn't the public library. No free reading,' I would let Karl read some comic books if he stayed out of sight in a back booth.”

Lanette remembered that it was several degrees below zero and it was already dark when her boyfriend, Robert, suddenly appeared beside them and asked her to go sledding on Martinson's Hill. Lanette replied with great resolve and told him that she was due at home for supper—and besides, she couldn't let Karl walk home alone after he had waited so long for her at the soda fountain.

“Robert was really convincing,” Lanette said, “arguing that just a couple of runs down the hill wouldn't take that long. And he played up to Karl, saying that he just knew that my little brother would love to go sledding with the big kids.”

Karl was excited by the prospect of joining a group of teenagers on their bobsleds on Martinson's Hill. “We just called them bobsleds,” Lanette said. “They were just big sleds that two or three of us kids could sit on at the same time. Martinson's Hill had the advantage of a long slope that seemed to go on forever, and it was fun sledding with the gang. And the fact that it was after dark made it seem all the more exciting.”

Lanette insisted that they would join Robert for only a couple of runs down the hill, and the three of them set out for Martinson's Hill on the edge of town.

“I will never forget how the wind seemed to slice right through my parka,” Lanette said. “It was crazy to go sledding when it was so cold, but we were Scandinavian-Americans from Minnesota who were supposed to have fun in freezing temperatures, just as our Viking ancestors had romped about on the ice floes above the Arctic Circle.”

Lanette kept a scarf over her mouth and nose so that she could breathe without the wind blowing frigid air down her throat, but Karl had neither a scarf nor a parka.

“He had a heavy wool coat and a stocking cap that he pulled down over his ears,” she said. “He seemed to be having so much fun, and he wasn't complaining about being cold—so we probably took five or six runs down the hill. But when we finally decided that we had better get home for supper, Karl was shivering. We still had quite a ways to walk from the sledding hill to our home, so his lips seemed almost blue with cold before we walked in the front door.”

Two or three nights later, when Karl was practicing his solo for the Christmas pageant, Lanette heard him stop playing to put a hand to his chest and release a series of hoarse, barking coughs.

“Mom was instantly alert to the sounds of any colds or sickness in the Petersen household,” Lanette recalled, “so she advised Karl that she would be rubbing his chest with Vicks when he went to bed. Dad set aside his newspaper and asked Karl if he was feeling okay.”

Karl nodded and continued playing “Away in a Manger.” He admitted that he had a sore throat and a tickle that made him cough. That night, the family was kept awake by the ten-year-old's rasping cough. The next morning, Dorothy insisted that he be taken to Dr. Wayne to have him see to that ugly cough.

“I'm feeling better, Mom,” Karl protested. “I'll pick up some cough drops on the way to school.”

Seemingly pacified by Karl's apparent improvement, Dorothy let him go to school, but a bleary-eyed Virgil announced in a grumpy tone that he would also pick up some cough medicine at the drugstore so they could all get some sleep that night.

After supper that evening, as Karl was practicing the piano, he began coughing and pressed a hand to his chest. “Mom, I have such a terrible pain here.”

Lanette watched her mother rush to Karl and feel his forehead. “Virgil, this boy is burning with fever,” she said, her face drawn and anxious. “Call Dr. Wayne.”

Those were the days when doctors made house calls—but those were also the days before modern miracle drugs and antibiotics.

Lanette recalled listening outside Karl's bedroom door as Dr. Wayne examined her brother. She will always remember her mother's cry of fear when the doctor cautiously diagnosed pneumonia.

Dr. Wayne did his best to sustain a mother's hope: “Now, Dorothy, the fever, the chills, the sharp pain in the chest indicate pneumonia, but let's be strong and not give in to anxiety. We'll just work hard with Karl and break that congestion right out of him. After all, we can't disappoint his audience at the Sunday school program, can we?”

“For ten days and nights, we all did whatever we could to help Karl get better,” Lanette said. “Karl kept saying over and over how he would get well, how he would play ‘Away in a Manger' for the pageant. But he insisted that I help him walk downstairs to practice. The Sunday school program was only a few days away. It just broke my heart to have to tell him that he had to stay in bed.”

Once, Lanette recalled, she entered Karl's room to find him moving his fingers on the bed covers as if he were playing the piano. He explained that he could “play” the stripes on the blankets as if they were piano keys.

And then Karl took a sad and pronounced turn for the worst, and he could only lie still in bed, trembling with fever, fighting for every breath of air that he could force into his lungs.

On a cold and awful winter's night just six days before Christmas, Dr. Wayne slowly moved the blankets over Karl's silent face and body. Through Lanette's grief and guilt, she heard the doctor say something about “edema in the lungs” having quieted forever her brother's talent and spirit.

A few nights after the funeral, the Petersen family was seated in the front room at the table, trying their best to appreciate the chicken dinner that Grandmother Sorenson had brought over for their family meal.

“I saw Mom look over at the Christmas tree,” Lanette said, “and she began to cry when she saw the gaily wrapped presents that Karl would never open. I guess that's when I remembered that it was Christmas Eve and I felt sad that that holiest of nights would never again be the same for any of us.”

Grandma Sorenson managed to get the family around the table, urging them to eat some dinner and try to bring something of the Christmas spirit into their hearts. She had just asked the blessing for the meal when they all heard the first notes come from the piano.

“We were all startled, and we all turned in our chairs to look at the keyboard,” Lanette said. “I remember that I felt a shiver run up my spine. Then once again the keys sounded—and we all recognized the opening notes of ‘Away in a Manger.' We all heard it as clearly as if Karl were sitting there in front of us, playing the piano.”

Virgil Petersen reached out to take his wife's hand firmly in his own. “It's Karl,” he said softly, tears moving over his cheeks. “It sounds just as he would play it.”

Dorothy lowered her head, not daring to believe. “Is . . . is it possible?”

Once again, the notes sounded from the piano, and Lanette whispered the words of the familiar Christmas hymn: “Away in a manger, no crib for his bed, the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head. . . .”

Grandmother Sorenson nodded solemnly. “Our Lord promises that we will all be joined together once again in heaven. The angels are giving us a sign right now, letting our little Karl come to play the piano for us one last time.”

“Can it really be Karl?” Dorothy cried out from the depth of her mother's heart.

The notes sounded louder than before, then, once again, very faintly. “Thank the blessed Lord,” Lanette heard her mother say, “our little Karl is now playing for the angels in Heaven.”

Lanette concluded her Christmas miracle story by saying that after that special Christmas Eve, they never again heard any heavenly notes sounding from the old upright piano. “Even though God had taken our beloved brother at Christmastime, he also granted us all the greatest Christmas gift of all—proof of the survival of the spirit after death. We were all able to lead more spiritual lives after that Christmas Eve because of our certainty that the soul lives on.”

S
usan Klemp was half asleep when she thought she heard her infant daughter crying. She opened her eyes, looked about the room, and was startled to see that the bed lamp had been turned on and a man was leaning over the cradle.

“My God!” she gasped. Her brain struggled with a hundred different fears.

Her husband, Gus, was on a three-day ice fishing trip with friends. She was alone.

Did the intruder mean to injure little Gretchen?

Why had she let Gus go on that silly trip so close to Christmas? All right, so he was a high school sociology teacher and those few days during Christmas vacation gave him his only chance to indulge in his favorite hobby—but it was only three days until Christmas Eve!

And now there was a burglar in the house.

Then she heard the man singing softly to the infant, “Silent Night,” in German, just as Gus liked to do, the way his grandmother had taught him when he was a boy.

Susan got out of bed, forgetting for the moment that she should either be calling the police or getting Gus's revolver out of its hiding place in a dresser drawer.

“Who are you?” she asked the man. He had drawn the hood of his heavy coat over his face so she couldn't distinguish any of his features in the dim light.

“Who are you?” she repeated, trying her best to dismiss all inflections of fear from her voice.

The man raised his head, and Susan was shocked to recognize her husband.

“Oh, Gus, you big lug, why did you come home without telling me?” she asked, tears of relief clouding her eyes.

Susan collapsed on the edge of the bed, nervous laughter releasing her pent-up tensions. “Do you know that you nearly scared the life out of me?” she scolded.

Then she noticed that his coat was soaked and that it was dripping water that smelled strongly of fish and Canadian lake.

“Don't get Gretchen wet with your stinky fish water!” she said sharply. “How did you get so wet?”

Susan walked into the bathroom and got Gus a thick towel.

“You get those wet things off,” she told him, “while I go make you some hot coffee. I'm so glad you're home in plenty of time for us to get some last-minute Christmas presents for your brother's family.”