The Doll And The White Rose
I hurried into the local department
store to grab some last minute
Christmas gifts. I looked at all the people and grumbled
to myself. I would be in here forever and I just had so much to
do.
Christmas was beginning to become such a drag. I
kinda wished that I could just sleep through Christmas. But I
hurried
the best I could through all the people to the toy
department.
Once again I kind of mumbled to myself
at the prices of all these
toys. And wondered if the grand kids would even play
with them. I found myself in the doll aisle. Out of the corner
of my
eye I saw a little boy about 5 holding a lovely doll.
He kept touching her hair and he held her so gently. I could not
seem
to help myself. I just kept looking over at the little
boy and wondered who the doll was for. I watched him turn to a
woman
and he called his aunt by name and said, "Are you
sure I don't have enough money" She replied a bit impatiently,
"You know
that you don't have enough money for it. The
aunt told the little boy not to go anywhere that she had to go
get some
other things and would be back in a few minutes.
And then she left the aisle.
The boy continued to hold the doll.
After a bit I asked the boy who
the doll was for. He said,"It is the doll my sister
wanted so badly for Christmas. She just knew that Santa would
bring it."
I told him that maybe Santa was going to bring it.
He said "No, Santa can't go where my sister is...I have to
give the
doll to my Mamma to take to her." I asked him where
his sister was. He looked at me with the saddest eyes and said
"She was
gone to be with Jesus." My Daddy says that Mama
is going to have to go be with her. My heart nearly stopped beating.
Then the boy looked at me again and said, "I told my
Daddy to tell Mama not to go yet. I told him to tell her to wait
till I
got back from the store." Then he asked me if I
wanted to see his picture. I told him I would love to. He pulled
out
some pictures he'd had taken at the front of the store.
He said "I want my Mamma to take this with her so she don't
ever forget
me." "I love my Mama so very much and I wish
she did not have to leave me." "But Daddy says she will
need to be with
my sister."
I saw that the little boy had lowered
his head and had grown so very
quiet. While he was not looking I reached into my
purse and pulled out a handful of bills. I asked the little boy,
"Shall
we count that money one more time?" He grew
excited and said "Yes, I just know it has to be enough".
So I slipped my money in with his
and we began to count it. Of course it
was plenty for the doll. He softly said, "Thank you
Jesus for giving me enough money." Then the boy said "I
just asked Jesus
to give me enough money to buy this doll so
Mama can take it with her to give to my sister." "And
he heard my
prayer. "I wanted to ask him for enough to buy my Mama
a white rose, but I didn't ask him, but he gave me
enough to buy the doll and a rose for my Mama." "She
loves white roses
so very, very much."
In a few minutes the aunt came back
and I wheeled my cart away. I could
not keep from thinking about the little boy as I
finished my shopping in a totally different spirit than when I
had
started. And I kept remembering a story I had seen in the
newspaper several days earlier about a drunk driver hitting a
car and
killing a little girl and the Mother was in serious
condition. The family was deciding on whether to remove the life
support. Now surely this little boy did not belong with
that story.
Two days later I read in the paper
where the family had disconnected the
life support and the young woman had died. I
could not forget the little boy and just kept wondering if the
two were
somehow connected. Later that day, I could not
help myself and I went out and bought some white roses and took
them to
the funeral home where the young woman was.
And there she was holding a lovely white rose, the beautiful doll,
and
the picture of the little boy in the store. I left there in tears,
my life
changed forever.
The love that little boy had for his
little sister and his mother was
overwhelming. And in a split second a drunk driver had
ripped the life of that little boy to pieces.
Author Unknown
