HOPE IN A BOX

HOPE IN A BOX



         Leigh Henderson looked at the card she found in the bottom of the shoebox.  It simply said ‘Can I pray for you’.  What a question.

         Her thoughts roamed at random, the house fire, her lost job, and the twins.  She almost broke down as she stared at the card.  How could she talk to anyone about the past year of her life?

         Her marriage was perfect.  Was, that was the operative word.  James had been so badly burnt in the fire that he had spent several months in the hospital before he had been transferred to a rehabilitation hospital.  He had undergone extensive reconstructive surgery, had to learn to walk again, and take care of himself.

         When he had finally been coherent enough he had asked about the twins, Jake and Joshua.  That was when he learned they had not survived the fire.

         Again, she looked down at the card in her hands.  Add the loss of her job to what happened, and she was destitute, no job, no twins, and a husband who almost didn’t talk to her when she visited him.

         They went through their savings in the first weeks after the accident.  His employment insurance took care of his medical bills.  They assured her he still had a job when he recovered sufficiently to work again.  That wasn’t the problem, but there had been a new place to live, daily necessities, and her daily trips to the rehab hospital that had exhausted their finances.

         She looked at the card in her hand and recalled the immediate generosity of friends, family, even her employment before she had been let go, and his, but that had soon disappeared.  Her employer wasn’t as generous as his was.  She had been called into the office about a month after the accident and was told she needed to be at work, or she would be fired.  She tried to explain that James’ condition was critical and her place was with him.  They said they understood, but they didn’t really.  They understood enough to give her discharge papers.

         She had stared at them.  What would she do?  Where would she go?  She couldn’t look for another job as long as James needed her.  She spent her day at the hospital.  She had read to him, talked to him about everything except the fact she had lost her job, and except for the one time when he had become conscious of his surroundings, and asked about the twins, she had never mentioned them.  It was too painful for her.

         They had all been asleep.  The smoke alarm alerted them that something was wrong about two in the morning.  They had woken to a house engulfed in flames.  Some nearby neighbors had called the fire department.  She had tried to get to the twins room.  It was just next to theirs, but a wall of fire blocked the way.  James insisted she go out the window.  The fireman was there for her, and he would get the twins.  She wanted to go with him, but he wouldn’t allow it.  It was the last she saw of him until the firemen had brought him out along with the twins.

         She had gone to the firemen who had her babies in their arms.  She didn’t recognize them.  Charred from the fire, their beautiful blond hair gone, their faces marred by the ravages of the fire.  She crumpled to the ground at the loss of her children.  Inconsolable at the loss of her children, she looked up again when another fireman brought her husband out of the house.  He looked just as bad as the twins, but he was still alive, barely.

         The ambulance took them away from it all.  The sirens screamed into the night, while at the same time she screamed inside at the loss of her life, her perfect life.  She had a husband who loved her, beautiful twin boys who looked just like him, jobs that gave them a comfortable lifestyle, perfect, and gone, all of it, in the blink of an eye.

         The card grabbed her attention again as she wiped the tears from her eyes.  She couldn’t talk to anyone about her life.  She had seen how much the community cared.  Anger clouded her eyes as she recalled her last moments at her job.  No one had expressed any words of hope or comfort for what she had gone through.  The only thing they cared about was the job.  She was just another employee in a company of employees who clocked in at eight in the morning and punched out at five at night.  The work wasn’t hard, but it was tedious.  She was glad to be away from it.

         The memories of that horrible night forever etched in her mind, along with the funeral service just a few days later.  Their pastor gave a moving service.  Afterwards he had promised the church would be there if she needed them, and if she ever needed to talk about what had happened, because it would be necessary to talk.  It was dangerous to keep everything bottled up.

         She had thanked him for his consideration, and the service, and then went back to her husband who was on life support.  There were so many tubes going to every conceivable place on his body.  It was surprising he had survived.  He looked a lot like the twins, charred almost beyond recognition.  They told her the twins didn’t have a chance because of their age, while her husband had a chance, and as long as there was a chance she would sit beside him, talk to him, pray with him, though that dwindled after a while.  There was no change in his condition.  Then there were the surgeries as soon as he came off life support.  There was a small hope he would recover and be his old self.  Again, she prayed, but mostly she left it to their pastor when he came to visit.

         It wasn’t as if she didn’t know God.  They had gone to church every Sunday.  The pastor had dedicated the twins the Sunday before.  She stared at the card.  Can I pray for you was etched in the center of the card.  There was no name, just the name of the organization it had come from along with the phone number and address on the back if she decided to mail the card.  She had no intention.  Again, the memories overwhelmed her.

         Again, she went to their pastor.  She sat in his office and listened while he tried to counsel her about what happened and why.

         Why did a fire take her boys away from her?  Why did her husband lay in the hospital, and looked little more than a charred piece of flesh?

         She recalled the day the fire chief visited her in the hospital.  They found the reason for the fire and they found where it started.  The house had faulty wiring.  The fire had started in the basement directly below the twins’ room.  They didn’t have a chance.  She had stored some newspapers in the basement for the Boy Scout drive, fuel for the fire.  It was her fault.

         She couldn’t tell anyone about the reason why.  She bottled everything inside and focused on James.  He needed her.  She needed him.  Her pastor urged her to talk about it, but she couldn’t.  It wasn’t long before she felt like a burden to the church and stopped going altogether.

         She had learned God was all right when everything was going good, but have any kind of difficulty and He was nowhere to be found.

         Then it hit her.  Who had sent her the shoebox?  In everything that happened, she didn’t recall any point where she had asked for that kind of help for Christmas.  She had not even heard of the organization that sent out the shoeboxes for needy people at Christmastime.

         Again, tears coursed down her cheeks.  It would have been the twins first Christmas.  They would have been almost a year old with their birthdays in January.

         The fire had been in March.  Why God?  What can I say to You?  Can You give me back my life, my children, my husband, my marriage?  Can You put things back the way they were?  Can You?

         She wanted to throw the card away along with the shoebox.  What good was anything in the box anyway?  Yes, she could use the shampoo, and the razor would be good for James.  The one at the rehab hospital didn’t work all that well.  In fact, everything in the box were items she needed.  Who knew what she needed?

         She knew the boxes were anonymous.  She looked at each object in the box again: shampoo, men’s razor, mittens, earmuffs, scarf.  Other than the razor, there wasn’t anything for her husband.  It was all for her.

         He didn’t need anything else.  It would still be at least another month before he was able to go home.  To where?  The apartment had lasted two months until all the money and good will were exhausted.  Her current residence was the local homeless shelter.

         Maybe it was from someone at the shelter or the rehab hospital.  She couldn’t imagine whom though.  Everyone she knew or met was busy with their lives, and didn’t want to be bothered with hers.

         She put everything back in the box, and was about to close the lid when another envelope slid from the folds of the scarf.  It had her name on it.

         The box was no accident.  She picked up the envelope.  It was heavy.  Something hard was in it.  She carefully opened the envelope and a key dropped into her lap.  The note that accompanied it simply said, ‘Yours for as long as you need it.’  It was a house key.  The address was also on the sheet of paper.  She recognized it for a very nice part of town.

         Who could be that generous?  God, do you really care about me?  What’s next?  A job?

         There was a woman’s closet where she could get some nice work clothes.  Hope renewed itself in her.  Maybe.  She would talk to James.

         She held the card in front of her, and a stirring of hope surged through her.  She would call.  It could help.  Someone did care.  She had bottled everything up for far too long.

         She wiped the tears from her face, and went to the phone.  James was in therapy.  It would be good to talk to somebody.  She dialed the number, scared and nervous at the same time.

         “Hope International, Lisa speaking.”