In the pressurised crescendo to the big day, it can be all too easy to forget what Christmas is really all about. As diverse as our populous is, so is the cause and celebration of Christmas Day for each us. And yet, despite in some cases extreme differences about what it means to each individual, if we but take a little time to see, there is still a point of commonality for all of us...
We were forced to do it. We had to brave a major shopping centre, a few days before Christmas to grab some last minute items. The sweat, the throngs of desperation, the madness, the accelerated mental fatigue, the tantrums, the social ineptitude birthing from utter self-centredness in the fight for retail survival... And the crowds would be there too.
Our schedules being our schedules (never dull) it had unfolded that the kids would need to come with me. Five kids, identical twin baby girls in tandem stroller, two tween daughters, one autistic and wheelchair dependant teenaged son, its never an easy journey Christmas crowds aside.
Amid reminders of, "Best behaviour, guys. Let's stick together. We're in the last few days now. You don't want to blow it and hit the naughty list in the last minute!" Their protests fell on my ears deafened by the pulsing ebb of impending throngs as the automatic doors drew back, sucking us inward...
Within forty meters of entry, my nine year old daughter cops a stroller running into her ankle from the side, with the hostile father pushing the stroller hissing at her, "Watch out!".
Shoving powered wheelchair into his path and halting his progress entirely, I caught his eye, "I believe you meant to say, "I'm sorry. Are you ok?"." The now crippled nine year old sitting on her brother's lap on the power-chair, we moved onward...
Entering the depths, I lead the troops into the belly of nonsensical purchasing: The market.
More would follow that first hostile stroller incident, subjecting us to complaints of "taking up the whole moving walkway with the wheelchair" (how inconvenient of us!), a fearless four year old slapping my eleven year old daughter for holding the last pink ball, minor tantrums from my gang when Mum refused to purchase another DSI so "we don't have to share" (where am I going wrong?) and Jack blatantly taking advantage of his disability to barge in, completely jumping the waiting queue, to speak to Santa with the announcement of "Santa, thank goodness! I've needed to talk to you..." And once again, as happens every single year, Santa looked at my kids, looked at me and said, "Are these all your kids?" (who else would work this hard, I ask you?!)
Eventually we made it to the back of a four-deep crowd queuing at the butcher. People were yelling across the counter with items of meat and money flowing back and forth in rapid succession. Chatting with the gang (the kids) as we waited our turn, it took me some time to realise the crowd was laterally shoving one another but not progressing, the atmosphere frazzled, feet were tapping impatiently.
At the counter was a gentle lady, somewhere around the eighty-year-old mark, leaning heavily on her walking frame and trying to be heard over the counter that towered well above her.
She was trying to buy a piece of corned beef for Christmas Day.
Her frail but friendly voice called, "Could you please weigh that for me? Tell me how much it might be..." the piece the butcher held was not much larger than an apple . However upon weighing it was apparently far too expensive.
She asked, "Do you have a smaller piece?"
The butcher procured a piece barely palm sized. But alas again, with a slow and sad glance in her purse, it was too costly...
"Could you cut it for me please?"...
My daughter Colby, all heart, grabbed desperately at my hand pleading, "Mum, we have to do something! Can we give her some money? Please!"
"How can we do it, Col, without making her uncomfortable?" All of us huddled, three of us rapidly whispering different theories of how we could help this lovely lady without embarrassing her. Jack, my son, however wasn't sharing and instead kept saying, "Give me the money, Mum. Give it to Jack!", grappling at my hand with his clammy, cerebral palsy grip.
The crowd was shuffling, impatient, blatantly rude...To keep Jack settled I handed him the $50 note that we were still busily plotting to drop in the lady's bag somehow.
The crowd's muttering started to become decorated with audible baubles of "Ouch!", "Oh, excuse me." and "Oh, sorry, mate." A perceptible shift that tells me my son is on the move. I looked up to see Jack guiding his wheelchair through the crowd, ramming whoever would thwart his path (something he never does!) bee-lining for this frail little lady.
"Can I help you?" a voice called. It was our turn at the counter.
I smiled, "Please! First of all, I'd like to..." I began using Jack's distraction to my advantage.
The sweet lady only noticed Jack once he was right beside her.
"Excuse me, " he said to her, and with that Jack smile and a huge amount of effort he raised his quadriplegic affected arm grasping the $50 note, "This is yours."
"Oh no, it couldn't be..." she protested.
He interrupted, "No, it is yours. It is. Please take it."
She stared at him, then looked about the now silenced, watching crowd.
"Please." Jack said again, "It hurts to hold my arm like this."
She tentatively took the $50.
He smiled and cheerily called, "And now you say "Merry Christmas Jack!""
Her voice shaky, her hand trembling, she said, "Oh yes, yes. Merry Christmas, Jack." Then to the crowd, "Did...did someone drop this?" And the crowd all smiling, shaking their heads, murmuring utterings of "saw you drop it", "sure its yours".
I sidled over, grabbed the handle of my boy's chair and we quietly made our way through the gathering.
We were moving away when the butcher called over the counter to her,
"Here's your corned beef, ma'am.", handing her a large parcel of corned beef. As she again began to protest he went on, "No charge. Already paid for. Merry Christmas, Love!"
Well clear of the butcher's queue, safely camouflaged in the moving crowd, we turned to glance back. This lovely lady was softly crying, happy, the flow of her tears coursing the face of a life well lived. Several people from the once impatient and hostile crowd, strangers, taking time, warmly and gently comforting her.
We all looked upon the image from our distance and a quiet whisper came up from the wheelchair beside me as he looked on,
"And now you say "Merry Christmas"."
