Dear Newtown Community:
I wrote this Christmas story as a way of reaching out to your community. My thoughts and prayers are with you. Fernando
The Little Red Box
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As hard as it’d been, Mary returned all the gifts in Jimmy’s list for Santa. Only the bee-bee gun he’d asked for ended up in the bin and not before Jim Snr. broke it in half. There was one gift, however, that they couldn’t say goodbye to. It was the one Jimmy made for them. The school had special delivered it to their home and in person. It came in a little box, gift wrapped in a bright red color that Jimmy had clearly seen to by the amount of scotch tape used to ensure the thing wouldn’t come undone. The matching ribbon was the work of his teacher, by the looks of the beautiful bow.
“I know what it is,” said six-year-old Lucy, Jimmy’s twin sister. “The boys were making them at school.”
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“I think it’s broken,” said the younger Emily. “It sounds broken if you shake it.”
Mary left her girls for a second to their talk and gained the refuge of the kitchen to pull herself together. She held on to the refrigerator door full of hand-drawn pictures from her three children.
Later that day, already on Christmas Eve and with the family gathered by the tree after dinner, it was time to open the gifts. Time and again the little red box was passed for other gifts until there was nothing else under the tree. Lucy brought the gift to her parents. It was small enough to fit on the palm of her hand.
“Open it, mummy,” said Emily.
Mary didn’t want to open the gift. Was it for fear that it may be broken? Or was it fear of breaking it, at least the wrapping? She searched her feelings but only felt tears swelling up inside her and knew she needed to contain herself.
“Why not keep the red box as is,” Jim Snr. suggested, “a gift to always hold its secret and live on with us.”
Sometimes the red box was to be found over the fireplace while at others on the dining table or on Jimmy’s chair at the table. It occupied a small place although its presence was enormous. On that first Christmas, when the family had gone to bed and Mary awoke to play Santa, she picked up the red box and tentatively shook it. From within came the sound of a tinker bell and she knew her little boy was an angel and alive with God.
