SJ Moquin
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He Really Does Exist

He Really Does Exist

Dec 17, 2022

He Really Does Exist 

The young mother's deep brown eyes bore into mine; longing, sadness, and despair sent me spiraling back in time. A time when a dime could buy a loaf of bread and two would get you a gallon of gas. For a quarter you could get a double scoop milkshake at the Woolworth's. But even for the inexpensive prices, I remembered that same look staring out from my momma's eyes as she told me no for the tenth time. I didn't understand then. Didn't care then. Only now, in the warmth of the future, could I look back and see the memory for what it was. The memory of the Christmas Santa came to my house.

The train was shiny, bright red and whistling, as it zipped around the track in the department store window. Momma tugged her threadbare brown coat around her shoulders, hunched with the cold and burdens my seven-year-old self would never understand. I'd stood there begging for that train. Asking to write a letter to Santa myself. And all Momma had said was later, trying to tug my willful, stubborn body away from the storefront window. I didn't notice the people staring or the tears in my momma's eyes when she finally leaned down to whisper, Santa would be late coming to our house that year.

Sullen, I'd pouted the entire walk home. We didn't have a car at the time. Momma walked to the two jobs she held down. Walked in the cold, the snow, and the ice. And never once did she complain of the unfairness. Never did she complain when many nights she'd say she wasn't hungry after fixing my dinner. She didn't complain when she stared at papa's photo on the old mantle, his face beaming out of the frame while medals gleamed on his chest, or when tears shimmered in her eyes as she glanced at the flag folded neat in a triangle beside it.

Later that Christmas eve night, long after I'd went to bed, my momma worked to mend laundry she'd taken in as extra income. A small fire crackled in the fireplace, barely enough warmth to reach where I huddled on a cot in the corner or to provide the light she needed to see. But the heavy rap on the door sent me flying straight up, glancing around the small one room cottage mother and I shared. Sleep fogged my brain. I didn't understand why my momma shook as she walked to the door, cracking it slowly. I was still half-asleep when a man in a red suit walked in. White beard and big belly, the man held his arms open as a deep laugh erupted from within. The ho-ho-hos were as jolly as my young mind always imagined they'd be. I jumped from the warmth of the only quilts our house contained to pad across the worn floorboards.

Momma shook her head whispering something I couldn't hear but Santa looked her in the eyes, and I will never forget the words he said.

"Even the strong need a hand now and then."

Years later, I learned why Momma cried so much that night, but to a small boy who was immediately transported to wonderland by the fragrant aromas of Christmas goodies, foods, and candies, I simply enjoyed having a full tummy for the first time in my short memory. Our luck changed after that Christmas. ‘Santa’, I learned many years later, hired mom as secretary for his big company downtown. We bought a car the next year and moved. But looking back now, that Christmas was magic woven into my child's mind. Its sweet tendrils still curled through me after all these years. Even though its secrets were revealed when Momma passed on many years later and I read her journal, it will always hold a place of wonderment for me.

I shoved my arms through my jacket, hurrying out of the old barber shop I'd been sitting in talking with friends from my youth. My feet weren't as fast as they used to be, but hopefully I wasn't too late.

"Hey, Charlie! Where you headin'?" my best friend, Tom, called.

"To play Santa," I replied, a grin breaking across my wrinkled cheeks. Pulling my cap down over my now snow-white locks, I spied the young mother, shoulders hunched as she held a baby in one arm and a young child by the other hand. Playing Santa wasn't something I'd ever done, but it was something I needed to do. Long overdue was the debt I owed. I could make someone else's as magical as that one special Christmas had been for me.

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