MY CHRISTMAS BLOG

Luke 4:10 | For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:

In all honesty, it didn’t happen at Christmas. It was February, 1963. My daughter Melanie was three months old. My husband Lonnie was stationed at Ft. Riley, Kansas, and we had a basement apartment in the college town of Manhattan. With the added allowance for my daughter, our income for a month—that’s right—a month…was $143. We supplemented that with money I made sewing and from stopping to pick up pop bottles from the side of the road to get the deposit. Two cents was still two cents.

I received a call that my father was very ill and not expected to live for more than a few weeks. My husband got a one-week pass. We loaded up our ’57 Ford station wagon and hit the road. We covered the 900 miles in a day and a half, taking turns driving. This was before the days of disposable diapers, cell phones, and charge cards.

When we reached Detroit, we slept at my grandmother’s house for a few hours and went to the hospital. Due to my Daddy’s condition, we were allowed to take the baby in to see him. He appeared almost comatose, but when I spoke to him, he opened his eyes and smiled.

“I brought the baby,” I said.

He pushed himself up and managed to sit on the side of the bed. “Give her to me.”

I handed her over, and he cradled her in his arms and cooed and talked to her. When he couldn’t sit up any longer, he gave her back to me. “She’s like a big doll,” he said.

The nurse came in and shooed us out. “We’re taking him down for a transfusion. Come back during regular visiting hours,” she told us.

We went back that afternoon. He was sitting up in bed and looked much better. He held Melanie and talked to her until we had to leave.

When I talked to his doctor in the morning, he told me that Daddy had made a remarkable recovery. They talked about actually releasing him from the hospital if the improvement continued.

The Army was waiting for my husband to get back to duty, so we packed up. Before we left, my father-in-law asked us how much cash we had. “Enough to buy gas and food,” we told him.

He took out his wallet and gave my husband $50, an astronomical sum to us. “Never travel without extra money,” he said.

It was February, bitter cold and windy. Snow skittered across the highway in front of us. About ten that night, we were in somewhat desolate prairie country, about an hour outside of Chicago. The car started acting up. Lonnie was able to pull over before it quit altogether. There were no other cars on the road to flag down in hopes of assistance.

We were in shock. What were we going to do? We couldn’t sleep in the car. The three of us would surely freeze to death. Across a field, we saw a string of lights from one of the new subdivisions popping up all across the mid-west.
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We were separated from the houses by a five-foot high wire fence and a considerable field. “We have to try to get there,” Lonnie said. He climbed the fence. I handed over the diaper bag and the baby and then went over myself. The wind blew so hard we had to lean forward to keep our balance as we walked.

The houses looked all the same. We knocked on the first door we came to, and a man answered. Lonnie explained our predicament, and he opened his home to us. “I know just the man you need,” he said. “I’ll drive you to his place, and he’ll take care of your car.”

They left me and the baby with the wife. She warmed a bottle of milk for Melanie, and we sat in the kitchen and talked. After a few minutes, the husband returned. “You’re in good hands,” he told me. “That kid’s the best mechanic I ever knew. If you’ll pardon me, I have to get to bed. I’m up at five for work.”

He said goodnight, and his wife and I talked for another two hours before Lonnie and the miracle mechanic returned.

“This is Jimmy,” my husband said. “It was the solenoid. He had to lead me back here so I could find the right house.”

Thin as a rail, even in his heavy jacket, Jimmy looked to be all of seventeen years old. He nodded at me. “You’ll be all right now,” he told me.

We thanked him, and he headed back out into the windy night. By now, it was after midnight. “I don’t have an extra bedroom,” the wife said, but I can make you pallets on the floor if you want to get some rest before you leave.”

“We can’t,” Lonnie told her. “I have to be back on duty.”

She filled up the baby bottles and gave us hugs before we left. Once we were on our way, I asked Lonnie, “How much did he charge you to fix the car?”

“Nothing. He opened the garage where he works and got the part we needed. I paid for the solenoid. He wouldn’t let me pay him for the labor.”

We exchanged Christmas cards with the husband and wife for years, but we moved several times, and they moved, and eventually, we lost track of one another.

Every year, I see the Christmas stories about Mary and Joseph trying to find a place to stay, and I remember my own Christmas angels, a husband who opened his home to us when we had nowhere else to go, a wife who sat up with me and fed my child, and a mechanic who went out onto the highway in the middle of a frozen night to fix a stranger’s car and then wouldn’t take a penny for his work.

Thank you, Lord, for the angels you sent to save us.