The
Doll and a 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 grandkids 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
or 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.
You now have the choice, you can:
1) pass this on to your friends
2) Or forget it and don't tell
anyone about it.
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