A Christmas to Forget – Part 3

Silas had barely finished his turkey sandwich when the heard the doorbell ring.   It wasn’t a doorbell in today’s sense of the word.  Rather, it was simply a little brass bell hanging by a string just inside the door.  Silas wondered again why anyone would want an electronic doorbell when his old bell had worked flawlessly for years.

As he made his way to the front of the store, he saw an older gentleman.  He was obviously younger than Silas, but still old by the world’s standards.  And he was certainly younger than most of the customers who frequented his store.

“Can I help you sir?” he asked?

“Yes.  I need a gift.  Something really nice. 

“Certainly.  Who’s it for?

“My mother.”

“OK.  Did you have anything in particular in mind?”

“Do you have any snow globes?”

“Well, yes. I still have a few.  Let’s have a look.”

He led the customer to a shelf near the back of the store.  “I keep these back here so the kids can’t knock them off the shelf.  They’re breakable.  I guess you know that.”

“Man, do I ever,” replied the customer, shaking his head.

“Sounds like you’ve had a little experience in that area.”

The gentleman sighed and nodded.  “Yes, and my mother has never let me forget it.  She brings it up every chance she gets, especially at Christmas.”

“Must have been a special snow globe”, said Silas.

“Yes, it was.  It was this beautiful nativity scene.  Of course it had snow when you shook it.  And it had a music box that played “Silent Night”.  It was a gift from her dad when she was a young girl.  It meant everything to her.  Goodness, it must have been seventy-five years old.  And then one day when I brought a friend home from college for the holidays, we were horsing around and I knocked it off the shelf.  It was a Christmas Eve, and she has held that against me ever since.”

‘Judging from your age, that seems like a mighty long time to hold a grudge.”

“Tell me about it,” replied the gentlemen.  “I’ve told her over and over, Mom, it’s in the past.  Let it go.  But she can’t.  I’ve found some very similar, but they’re not good enough.  But I’ll try again this year.  As a matter of fact, I’ll take this one.  It’s not a nativity, but it’s a pretty little church.”

They took the small glove to the counter where Silas took the man’s money and began to carefully wrap the gift in tissue.  He rummaged under the counter until he found the box the globe had come in and placed it gently inside.

“Gift wrap?” He asked.

“That would be great,” replied the customer.

Silas had a thought.  “Sir.”  He paused.  “Would you mind if I wrote a short note to your mother and enclosed it with your gift?  Maybe a word from an old man to an elderly lady?”

The gentleman shrugged and nodded his approval, and at Silas’s request, gave him his mother’s last name.

The note simply read, “Mrs. Stapleton.  Your son selected this gift from my shop, hoping to please you.  It’s none of my business, but I felt compelled to suggest to you that you not let the ghosts of the past continue to haunt you.  What’s past is past.  Your son loves you very much and needs you, maybe even more than you need him.  He won’t see this note, and you can toss it in the trash and suggest that I mind my own business.  I’ve been told that before.  We all make mistakes, and this is a perfect season to offer forgiveness.  Your son needs it and so do you.  May the Lord bless you.  Merry Christmas.”

Silas finished wrapping the gift, placed it inside a bag and handed it to the gentlemen who thanked him and went on his way.  As the doorbell indicated his departure, Silas thought about what he had just done.  It wasn’t like him to be so bold as to meddle in someone else’s personal affairs.  It really wasn’t like him at all.

Silas walked to the back, still pondering his actions, and poured himself a cup of coffee. He was about to take a sip when he was surprised to see a young woman, probably in her thirties, standing near a collection of leather goods.  He had not heard the bell ring, and he didn’t know how long she had been there.  She was picking through the wallets, the folios and valets, smelling the leather and placing them back on the table.

“Good morning.  I didn’t hear you come in.  Got some really nice stuff there,” he said.  Noticing the wedding ring on her finger, he added, “you couldn’t make a better choice for your husband.”

She nodded.  “Yes, but it’s probably outside my price range.”

“Well, it’s hand-crafted leather, so it ain’t cheap.  But it’ll last a lifetime.”

“Not sure I need anything to last that long, at least not now.”  Silas sensed the tremble in her voice, and chose his words carefully.

“Well, you’re right. Not everything needs to last a lifetime.  Some things need to be used and then replaced from time to time, especially if something better comes along.  Of course, newer is not always better.  But I try to sell stuff that will last, because some things are just worth keeping.  These leather goods fit that category.”

She nodded silently.

Sensing a need to do so, Silas continued. “You know that I need to sell some of this stuff and Christmas is getting close.  Not as much demand for these items after the holidays.  And I sure hate to store them.  Running out of room in the back.  If you see something you like, I can offer you a nice discount, say forty percent?

She looked at him and smiled.  “Really?  I don’t know what to say.  But thank you!”

Silas smiled at the young woman.  “I’ll be at the register.  Take your time.  If you need any help, just let me know.”

The young customer came to the counter with a nice leather valet, a square bowl-like container for placing keys, change, wallets, and the like on one’s bedside each evening.  Just a good way to know where you put your stuff.

“He’ll love this.  He’s always losing things.  That’s what’s started the whole argument.”

Silas raised his eyebrows to let her know he was willing to listen if she wanted to talk.

“What you said about some things being worth keeping.  That’s exactly what he said to me last night when he stormed out of our bedroom to make his bed on the couch.”

“Go on.”

“Well, we’ve had a rough couple of months.  It all started when he lost the keychain I gave him at our wedding.  We’ve been married for twelve years, and he’s always cherished that keychain.  It wasn’t an expensive gift, but it was all I could afford at the time.  He seemed to cherish it.  He always kept it with him.  Then for some unexplained reason, he lost it.  And everything has been downhill since then.”

“Because of a keychain?”

“I know, it sounds silly, but I was crushed when he told me.  I said some things I probably shouldn’t have said.  But it symbolized the most perfect day of my life, and he acted like it was only about the keychain.  He couldn’t understand why I was so upset.  Then he accused me of being petty.  I don’t think it’s petty at all.” 

Silas nodded.

“We’ve been struggling to get back on track, and it’s been hard.  I mean, I really said some nasty things to him.  But after he slept alone on the couch last night, I realized that we’re going down the wrong path.  He’s done everything within his power to make this right.  I guess I’ve just been a little too stubborn. I realize that now.  So I need a peace offering.”

“No time like the present,” replied Silas.  “Here, let me wrap this for you.  You just look around while I do.”

As Silas laid the valet on the counter, he thought about how the past impact the present, and how the present shapes the future.  Taking the liberty to do so, without asking permission, Silas took his pen and wrote a note on a small card, placing it inside the valet.

“Young man.  You don’t know me, and I don’t mean to meddle.  But your wife is giving you this really nice valet.  It will last a lifetime if you take care of it.  Not unlike a marriage.  This valet will withstand some mistreatment, but that will eventually take a toll on it.  A marriage is a lot like that.  I think you know that, and I think your dear wife is learning that.  Don’t let a negative spirit keep you from enjoying the present (not the present in the box, but the present time) for without the present, there won’t be a future.  Enjoy your gift and cherish the one who gives it to you.  Merry Christmas!”

Accepting her thanks for his kindness, Silas gave the woman her bag and watched her disappear through the door and down the sidewalk.  He considered his actions with these customers and didn’t really know what to make of it.

Noticing the clock on the wall, Silas realized the day was getting away.  Only an hour until he closed the shop.  He felt an air of excitement creep in as he thought about Katie and the others arriving later that night.  Then he heard it.

The door opened with such a force, Silas thought the bell had broken and fallen to the floor.  He looked over from the counter and saw two women walking into the shop.  Their expressions were anything but merry. The younger woman appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties.  The older lady was somewhat older.

“Please listen to me,” said the older of the two women.

“Mother, please, there’s nothing else to say.”

“Sweetheart, you can’t throw away your future because of something so trivial!”

“Trivial?  You can’t be serious.”

“OK.  Trivial was the wrong word.  But you’re acting like he broke off the engagement.  And he didn’t.”

“No, I did!  He said he wasn’t sure he wanted to marry me, so I helped him make a decision. I ended it!”

“Honey, what he said was that he was a little nervous and thought you should hold off on setting a date.”

“Same thing.”

“No, it’s not.  He said he had no doubts about the marriage, but about whether you should wait until he had finished school.”

“Yeah, graduate school.  That’s a whole extra year!”

“He loves you, and you know it.”

“He has a funny way of showing it.”

Silas looked on silently.  Once the two had stopped arguing, he offered to help.

“Just looking,” said the daughter.

The mom spoke up.  “We’re looking for a leather bag for a man in college.”

“I’m not looking for anything,” interrupted the daughter.

Silas, feeling the liberty to speak decided to wade in.  After all, he had been giving unsolicited advice all day.  Why stop now?

“Sounds like there’s trouble in Paradise.”

The young woman started to protest, but something about the old man’s gaze caused her to soften her tone and open up to him.

“My boyfriend and I had planned to marry next summer, after he graduates from college.  Now he wants to wait until he completes graduate school and finds a good job. Since I graduate as well, I told him I could take a teaching job and we’ll be fine.  But that wasn’t good enough for him.  I simply told him if he didn’t trust my judgement, then how could we build a life together?

“Hmm.  So, you want him to trust your judgement, but you don’t want to trust his.  Am I understanding this correctly.”

The young woman stared at him, obviously caught off guard by his simple, but accurate logic.

“Let me share something with you,” he continued.  “I was married to a wonderful women for more than forty years.  We took a chance on love, without knowing what the future would hold.  We had our share of troubles, but most of those years were good.   If I could have seen the future and some of those struggles, I might have made some different decisions. But I couldn’t.  There was no crystal ball.

“And I don’t know your future.  Neither do you. But I can give you little glimpse into how it will be if you make a rash decision out of anger.   Those decisions are usually bad decisions.  And after one, the next gets easier.   Before you know it, you’re just an angry old person, harboring resentment and bitterness.

“Let me make a suggestion.  Go ahead and buy your fiancé…”

“Ex-fiancé,” she interrupted.

“Fair enough.  Go ahead and buy him a gift.  Just something small.  And think it over.  Maybe even pray about it.  If you decide you don’t want to give it to him, then don’t.  But make that decision with a clear mind, and not out of anger or hurt.”

She nodded, and walked away to look around.

“Thank you,” said the mother.

Silas nodded.  As he walked to the  counter, he knew that he was going to write another note.  And he did.  He enclosed it inside the leather bag the young woman purchased, but without her knowledge.  It read as follows.

“Young man, I have no business writing to you.  I’ve never met you and probably never will.  But I have been told about your decision and have no right to say if it’s a good or bad decision.  Sounds logical to me, but I don’t have all the facts.  Maybe you and your fiancé need to make this decision together.  But what do I know?  I do know that we have a future of some kind.  What we do today will determine much of that future, and if we don’t make good decisions today, the future is only a bad dream that may come true.”

The two women left the store, gift in hand, thanking Silas for his help.  He locked the register, grabbed his coat, and made his way toward the door.  Pausing for a brief quiet moment, Silas, who didn’t pray regularly any more asked, “Lord, are you trying to tell me something?” But he was talking to himself as much as to anyone else.

TO BE CONTINUED.