The True Meaning of Christmas

By Robert Hunt

This is a collection of heartwarming stories set in Newfoundland during the Christmas season. At times heartbreaking, but always uplifting at the end, these stories share a touching message with readers that the best gifts are not material things, but rather the kindness we show others.

Bestselling author Robert Hunt tells stories of an athlete who runs a marathon for a girl he never knew, of two soldiers who forget the horrors of war to acknowledge one another on the battlefield during Christmas, a journalist who spends the holiday covering a war story in Darfur, and a man who gives up his prized roses at a competition for the woman he loves.

Also included is the story of a woman who suffered an injury in an automobile accident and looks for divine intervention when she travels to Mother Teresa's home in Calcutta, India.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Flanker Press
• Release date: Oct 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781771177740

Book preview

Praise for Robert Hunt

Corner Boys

"Corner Boys is humorous and enjoyable. It evokes, not just the historic past of a part of a city and an era, but the emotional and psychological past of childhood and adolescence." — The Newfoundland Quarterly

"This remembrance concerning growing up and ‘knocking around’ with friends around the area of Casey Street/McKay Street/Brazil Street actually compares favourably with Mordecai Richler’s The Street and Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes." — The Western Star

This is one of the best books about growing up—and being a kid—that I have ever read. It moved me even more profoundly than This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolfe. — The Western Star

Townies

I found this book a most enjoyable read and very insightful. As I would be referred to in this book as a ‘bayman’ not to be trusted, this book gave me great insight into the lives of townies. At the end of the book I realized that perhaps townies and baymen are more alike than not. I would highly recommend this book—it’s a great read. — Edwards Book Club

[Robert Hunt’s] writing is a combination of grittiness and tenderness that rings as true as your friendly neighbour who shovels out your driveway after a snowfall and looks a little embarrassed when you thank him. — The Northeast Avalon Times

Also By Robert Hunt

The True Meaning of Christmas

Brazil Street

Townies

Corner Boys

Christmas Treasures

(with Lisa Ivany)

At Heart

(with Lisa Ivany)

Christmas Memories

(with Lisa Ivany)

Flanker Press Limited

St. John’s

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The true meaning of Christmas / Robert Hunt.

Names: Hunt, Robert J., 1949- author.

Description: Short stories.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190172592 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190172606 | ISBN 9781771177733 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771177740 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781771177757 (Kindle) | ISBN 9781771177764 (PDF)

Classification: LCC PS8615.U6825 T78 2019 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

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© 2019 by Robert Hunt

All Rights Reserved. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well. For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll-free to 1-800-893-5777.

Printed in Canada

Cover Design by Graham Blair

Flanker Press Ltd.

PO Box 2522, Station C

St. John’s, NL

Canada

Telephone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Toll-free: 1-866-739-4420

www.flankerpress.com

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

We acknowledge the [financial] support of the Government of Canada. Nous reconnaissons l’appui [financier] du gouvernement du Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities.

This book is dedicated to my children, Stephen and Heather, and to my grandchildren, Joshua Hunt and Maria Johansen. Also to my adopted grandchildren, Ava and Emma Coady, Mya, Samuel, and Oliver Lacey, who live in St. John’s. They light up the world that we live in with their sweet innocence.

Contents

Preface

Introduction: I Remember a Christmas Past

The Gift

The Ugly Tree

The Christmas Waltz

Dr. Magic

Into Eternity

A Christmas Creation

The Christmas Miracle

Callie’s Christmas Gift

The Maid of the Mist

Without a Sound

Remembering Darfur

Christmas Faith

I’m Listening, Dad

Shadows of the Past

A Lesson in Humility

Destination Road

Teammates

A Green Christmas

Christmas Roses

The Ghost of Christmas Past

Dad’s Ring

Acknowledgements

Preface

Christmas is a wonderful time of year when we all come together to celebrate the birth of the Christ child, who was born 2,000 years ago in a small stable in Bethlehem. This celebration creates in many of us a feeling of tranquility and love. At this time of the year, we all wish to spend some quality time with our families in celebrating this beautiful holiday.

But Christmas is not always a joyful holiday spent with family. Many people have to work or have other commitments during this peaceful time. Some may have to take business trips away from home, while others may have to spend time with family members or people who are seriously ill or dying. To those people, Christmas becomes just another day in the year. So many people have jobs that cannot be put on hold for the Christmas season or the New Year. Nurses, doctors, paramedics, police officers, firefighters, and many others have to work through the holiday season. After all, life doesn’t stop because of Christmas, as many places cannot function without the people who give of themselves and, in doing so, miss out on festive season. Many stories in this book are about those times when people have to spend time away from home and their loved ones when this time of year comes around.

The writings in this book are based on stories that I had heard growing up, or those I have heard about at Christmastime when I was a young man. Some are fictional, while others are inspired by true events. Any resemblance to or name of any person, living or dead, that is contained in this book is purely coincidental.

Introduction

I Remember a Christmas Past

It’s funny, as we age and Christmastime comes around, how certain things from our past seem to creep back into our minds. Several Christmases ago I was sitting in my favourite chair, watching a Christmas movie on television, and was warmed by our propane fireplace as it snowed outside. The movie was about a young boy whose mother was trying to impress upon him that Christmas is about giving and not receiving. The young boy, who had been given many presents by his parents, didn’t seem to understand the concept, so his mother told him a story about giving. As I watched, I recalled a similar story my mother told me while I was growing up.

Sometime in the early 1960s, when I was a small boy of about ten or eleven, a man came to our front door one evening around Christmastime asking for food. My mother always baked a wide variety of Christmas cookies, blueberry and banana bread, cakes, and homemade bread, the tantalizing aroma of which drifted through the neighbourhood to beckon everyone who passed by our door. In our area of Brazil Street, or Brazil Square, the average working person lived just above the poverty line, but we were lucky, as my dad had a full-time job. Having said that, we lived a fraction of an inch above the poverty surrounding our east end neighbourhood.

My mother welcomed any stranger knocking on our door, young, old, rich, poor, feeble, or sound, to come share what we had. She turned no one away. My dad was away at work most of the time. He probably wouldn’t have objected to my mother’s giving to the downtrodden. Besides, Mom would have shrugged off any arguments and continued doing this thing she loved regardless. It wasn’t that my father was mean-spirited but in those days, money, jobs, and food were scarce, and like many others, he had to work hard to eke out a living and to keep bread on the table for his family.

To understand my mother and father’s generosity, one just had to look where they came from and how they struggled all their lives to make ends meet. It was easy to see that they understood from experience what it was like to go without. They came from small communities where survival was a struggle from day to day. But that didn’t stop them from being good to their fellow man. Even at my young age, I was astounded by how quickly my parents helped others they didn’t even know, and without a thought to any kind of reward for themselves. It was who they were, and I’ve admired them for it all my life. Their motto was: Anyone who asks for help doesn’t go without or leave our door empty-handed or hungry. It’s a principle I’ve embraced all my life to honour and keep the memory of my parents alive. They were good people.

On this one particular evening, the smells of Mom’s baking had tempted yet another stranger to come to our door. Mom responded to his knock. He wore an old, ruffled grey overcoat with cuts and holes running along the sleeves and some buttons missing at the front. The weather was pretty cold outside. I saw that he had on a pair of grey gloves that were full of frozen ice that stuck to the fingers in large globs. The boots he wore were tied by two pieces of rope to keep them from loosening, as both zippers appeared to be broken. He wore no cap to protect his head or his ears. With dirty hair and a face covered in a long beard, it occurred to me that he must have slept in an alley overnight. He looked a sorry sight as he stood there shivering, and he gave Mom a pleading look.

I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, but a neighbour down the street told me that I could come to you in the hopes of getting a cup of tea to warm myself and perhaps a cookie to go along with it. I promise that I’m not going to be too much of a bother to you.

My mother took the older man by the arm and ushered him into the kitchen. Sitting him by the hot oil stove, she asked him to remove his coat, which she hung up on a hanger on the opposite end of the stove to dry. She asked him whether he preferred tea or coffee to drink.

Coffee, ma’am, please, was his reply, and he added, thank you.

As he drank his coffee and ate his fill, he and my mother talked about what had brought him out on such a dreadful evening. The conversation was never about my mom but always about strangers who came to our house. As they spoke, I could see my mother’s concern for him. She listened closely and treated the man as if they had known each other for years. I was a bit wary of any stranger coming into our home, but I knew that if my mother could trust this person sitting in our kitchen, then I would go along with it.

The man stayed for about half an hour as his coat dried and he warmed up. He stood and thanked Mom profusely and told her that she was a saint for being so kind. Mom had wrapped up cookies and cake and put them in a bag. She passed it along to the man. Then she went to a closet in the kitchen and took out an old hat that we used when we went outside in the garden to get oil for the stove. She gave this to the man as well. As the fellow went to the door, he turned and looked at me and called me over to him. I approached him tentatively. He put his hand on my shoulder and whispered something to me that I have never forgotten.

Son, you have a good mother there. You and your dad are lucky to have her. Treat her good, and one day you should turn out to be just like her.

I nodded to him, thinking it was an odd thing to say to a boy of my age. I mumbled to him that I would, and he smiled and left. Some people who came to our door, women as well as men, came back regularly, but I never saw this man again.

Not fully understanding why my mom did what she did for so many people, I decided I would ask her about it.

Mom, how come we give to everyone, like this man, who comes to our door when we don’t have a lot of things for ourselves?

I remember the look she gave me. She looked surprised. Smiling her wonderful smile, she took me by the shoulders and sat me down in our small living room.

I want to tell you a story about a good man who always gave of himself with no thought of reward and only wished to be paid a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work.

As I sat beside her on our couch, she gave me one of my most cherished gifts I have ever received for Christmas. It was a story about the real spirit of Christmas and how, in giving to others, we become wonderful people in our own right.

A young man from out around the bay in Newfoundland came to St. John’s looking for work. He had no money to buy Christmas gifts for his wife and children, so he decided to go to the city several weeks before Christmas in the hope of finding employment. Remember, Mom reminded me, this was in the late 1930s, and work was very scarce. He stayed in the Salvation Army hostel while he scoured the city for work. Days went by, and he was about to give up hope. He was told by a group of men on Water Street that several jobs had been offered to others during the week, but he had come to St. John’s too late to find any kind of suitable work before the holiday season.

Downhearted, he was about to walk away, when he was called aside by one of the men. He told him that he had heard of a rich businessman in the west end of the city who was looking to hire a man to clean his riding stables. The pay was to be $2 a day for about three days’ work. The average week’s pay for the working man at that time was around five or six dollars a week, so $6 sounded great.

Hurrying to the address given to him by the gentleman on Water Street, he approached the businessman and asked about work. To his surprise, the businessman was happy to see him, and he was hired. But his happiness was short-lived when he saw the stables were an absolute mess. Surely it would take him more than a week to complete the job! But, in the end, a job was a job. He went at it with a vengeance. Not only did he do the cleaning that was required of him, but he reinforced and repaired the walls and fittings in that section of the stable. When he finished, the businessman was so pleased he asked the man if he could spend another week there to fix another section of the stable.

The man agreed, and he got to work right away so he would have plenty of time to head home to his family to spend Christmas with them. He made sure to give the businessman a daily report on his progress. His boss even offered him a spare room in the house, and the maid provided him his meals. The businessman checked on him from time to time but overall was pleased with the quality and speed of the work.

A renewed spirit energized the man as he swung his mallet and proceeded to demolish the last section of wall that needed to be rebuilt. A large portion of the wall came crashing down to the stable floor, and as he moved around the wreckage, he noticed a small package had slipped onto the ground. Curious, he picked it up. It was wrapped in very old brown paper. Cautiously, he unwrapped the package.

What first slipped from the parcel were several pictures of a young man in a military uniform, possibly taken before he left to go to war. The pictures were taken in St. John’s—he recognized the buildings in Pleasantville where many soldiers trained before they went overseas. The young man reminded him of his own son. A large envelope accompanied the photos. He guessed it might have something of value inside it. Clearing a space, he tore open the top and tipped the contents of the envelope onto the wooden floor. He was surprised to discover several photos of a young lady, what appeared to be two expensive gold wedding bands, and three rolls of money!

His hands trembled as he unrolled the money and started to count it. Ten- and twenty-dollar bills were in one roll. The second roll contained the same amount. The third roll held another $50 in ten-dollar bills. Four hundred and fifty dollars total! The jewelled rings, he guessed, would