I don’t know how many of us still go through the print media and read good old Reader’s Digest, but this childhood habit has remained with me and of late, I have been reading this magazine non-stop for last 20 years. The latest December issue of RD has heartwarming lores capturing the spirit of Christmas.
The first story relates to a young girl of 4 years, who loses her father, but refuses to come to grips with the reality. The attempts by her mother and grandmother to convince that her father is in heaven from where no one returns bear no fruits. To cut the story short, on her father’s birthday, the girl buys a Little Mermaid birthday card, wraps it in plastic and ties it to a helium balloon so as to make it reach her father. Days later this balloon is noticed by a forest ranger, who in curiosity, opens the plastic packet and reads the message. He is surprised to read “Happy birthday Daddy” message sent to heaven that travels some 6000 kilometers away in a village called Mermaid in Eastern Canada. The ranger and his wife buy the book “The Little Mermaid”, pen a letter for the young girl saying that as her father cannot buy this book in heaven, he has requested them to buy it for her to be sent to her as gift from him. This has changed the life of the little girl, who now knows that though her father is in heaven, he is perpetually with her at all points of time. The balloon carrying little mermaid card and reaching the place called Mermaid some 6000 kilometers with the card in tact, if not a miracle, cannot be called anything else.
The second story is about an Australian couple to whom twins, a boy and girl are born prematurely and the boy is almost still born. Doctors have no hope of saving the boy, but mother notices a little gasp that doctors dismiss to be her imagination. She asks husband to come close to her and than holds the baby between them , hoping that skin touch and body warmth will revive the baby. And miracle happens and the boy, declared irretrievable by doctors few minutes back, starts breathing normally. Today the twins are healthy babies 9 years old.
A dancing Christmas tree gifted by a father and kept in store was taken out one Christmas much after the father’s death. The tree had long exhausted its battery and was put up like a normal tree, when it started dancing without replacement of batteries. It was a miracle attributed to the father sending his blessings to his children on Christmas.
Last story is again of a mother losing her 3 years old baby in an accident caused by a drugged driver. Her only solace was a photograph with the child sitting on her lap. When the photo got misplaced, the mother’s trauma returned to haunt her when during the Christmas clean up, she recovers the old photograph tucked inside an old book. This miracle on Christmas was the best gift she could ever hope.
Heart touching stories that have relevance in any background or any season of festival.
Arvind Arya blog 