What is Your Name?

It is the first Christmas Eve that we will celebrate without out our patriarch and father sitting at the head of the table. The emotions are still raw and it will bring with it sadness. In all honesty though, we were blessed with him for many years. I had fifty-eight Christmas’ with him, my mother seventy. He had a long, fruitful life, passing away at ninty-two. Not all are so blessed.
It is Christmas Eve and for the last fifty years a little child has wandered into my mind. This child and her family never got to share many bright, Christmas mornings with toys and joy. They learned of sadness early on and I would think that the Christmas season for them would bring heartbreak and tears.
It was a mild, yet still chilly afternoon when the school bell rang to release the children to the waiting buses, nearby streets, or cars parked with parents at the helm. It was the day that school let out for the holiday. Children yelled with delight and danced into the waiting afternoon full of excitement and anticipation. I knew that my parents would pick me up in the large, shiny blue car, and therefore I could dawdle with my friends for a few more minutes before going out into the parking lot. The nuns kept us in tow so the busy buses could leave carrying the children to their homes a glitter with lights and decorations in expectations of Santa Claus and the baby Jesus. I was one of the last children to leave the school on that day and the sister walked me to my car. Behind her was a younger girl in a light tan sweater wrapped over her school uniform. She had long dark blond hair and looked lost and frightened. As we approached my parents’ car, my father rolled down his window to speak with the nun.
“Would you mind taking this child home? She missed her bus and it is too far a walk for her alone,” sister queried.
My father nodded in agreement and the waif scuttled into the back seat beside me.
She was younger than me and seemed to be a very shy girl. She had, though, a sweetness that permeated the car and offered a gentle sense of calmness that was elusive to children of that age, especially around Christmas. I asked her name and she replied, “Helen.” Then I inquired about her desires for the gifts she wished to appear magically under her tree in the coming days. She shrugged and said that she did not know. She seemed to be a content person with the simple joy of life and hope. Dad had a good idea of where she lived from speaking with sister, but he asked Helen to point out her home as we rambled down her street. She pointed to an unassuming house with a string of colored lights placed happily on a tree on the front yard. It was a house of a struggling family, one where only few gifts would be offered.
“Is someone home,” my mother asked.
“Yes, my older sister,” she quietly answered.
She seemed almost an angel as she slid from the car and with a heavenly smile said, “thank you.”
We watched as she went into the home and left when my parents were satisfied that she was safely inside with another there to watch her.
On Christmas Eve our family, at that time, went out to a fancy dinner and then home to happily await the arrival of toys and presents under the gaily decorated tree the next morning. Then after seeing what the “elf” had brought for us, we hurriedly dressed in our nice clothes and headed off to the children’s Christmas Mass at 9:00. This year was no different, almost.
As school children, we were herded into special pews reserved just for us. On this bright Christmas morning, the nuns, as they always did, awaited in the aisles as we entered and kneeled for our prayers. On this Christmas though there seemed to be a pallor draped around the adults. The nuns bowed their heads, not in worship, but in sadness. The altar boys rang the bell and everyone stood for the entrance procession and the start of Christmas Mass. The priest entered and bowed then immediately walked to the podium, instead of the center to begin the service. He looked over the crowded church and glanced at the votive lights in memory of those who have passed on.
“Today is Christmas,” he started. “Today I ask for each and every one to keep in their prayers a family of our children who perished in a fire early this morning.”
The church was hushed, no child made a sound, no adult whispered. Then there was a small, soft, sob.
We learned on that Christmas that some are called to God, even on Christmas Eve, even children. In the deep of the night the parents and one child worshipped at Midnight Mass. The wonderfully decorated, tinsel strewn tree, with glittering lights that awaited with some few gifts for the children’s delight, ignited. The flames licked the sky rising forever towards the heavens, taking with them little, angelic, waiflike Helen and four of her siblings.
I heard in the following years that the parents moved away and eventually had more children. Brothers and sisters that Helen would never know. They rose from the ashes and still retained a faith that was everlasting. Perhaps it is because they know that their little girl is still remembered even after fifty years by some stranger, some other little girl who once asked their child, “What is your name” on a chilly December day so long ago.