My Story, Part I

It's January of 2012. Every year, as the ball drops in New York's Times Square, I recall the strangest thing. I was in the 6th grade. The Christmas Break (as it was called in those days) was soaring toward us. The students in Mrs. Boddiford's class had all brought a gift (we could not spend more than $2) for the gift exchange. We placed the wrapped gifts at the front of the classroom, near the teacher's desk, and then drew numbers to see who would get to "pick" first.

One of the gifts was obvious. It was a ball. A regular, ordinary ball. Not a small ball, and not a beach ball, but a  basketball sized rubber ball. It had probably cost all of 25cents.

The giver was a girl named Linda. Linda came from the poor side of town. She wore our hand-me-downs. She didn't bathe every day like the rest of us girls. Her hair was curly and unruly and her body had started to change already. In the 6th grade, she was an outcast.

I actually liked Linda. She was nice, once you got past all the other stuff. She somehow managed to grow her nails long (no small feat for 11-year-old girls in those days. Most of us were still tom-boying around. So, even though her nails were usually dirty, they were long. I was impressed.

I had drawn a high number; meaning, I would be one of the last to get a gift. Not the last, but among the last. As each child picked a gift, the rest of us watched as they deliberately avoided the ball from Linda. I cut my eyes over to our classmate several times (she sat in the row next to mine, in the seat next to mine). Her face reddened with each turn and, when one of the boys acted like he was going to choose the ball, but then didn't (which caused the rest of the boys to laugh), she looked as though she'd cry any moment.

I'm not going to say I'm a saint here, but when it was my turn, I took the ball.

I was always a sucker for the underdog. Always looking out for those less fortunate than me. Always looking for the good in the bad, the joy in the sad. I got this from my parents, especially my mother. I can only think of one or two people she ever treated "differently" and both of them were boys she didn't fancy good enough for her daughter.

I've done the same, only to be found very wrong.

Last year, a number of Facebook friends said, "You seem sad to me ..."
My closest friends knew of our heartache, the one that had nearly consumed me. Okay ... it consumed me. They knew I'd never been so hurt, so torn apart, so ripped to shreds as I'd been in 2011. Nothing in my life had ever prepared me for this. Nothing. Yet, God saw fit that we -- my husband and I -- had to endure the pain. The loss.

I tell you the first story before I start to share the second because I want you to know the kind of person I really am. I am far from perfect. I am a sinner by every stretch of the word. But, deep down in the core of me, I (and my husband) am "good folks." We see a need and we wonder how we can help fix it. We see someone who is down, and we ask ourselves if we have what it takes to make life better for that one person.

When we do, we offer it.

Oftentimes this results in the most positive of returns. Other times, it ends in the crushing blow that, no matter what, some people just cannot be grateful. They'll always see the negative. The rainbow fades; there is no pot of gold.

So I begin our story of 2011 in 2012 with a story from 1968. A girl with her simple gift. Another girl willing to take it.

And, for a while, I enjoyed that ball. But, in time, it too deflated.