The Miracle of Christmas 2017

Noah turned to Chris as they walked the aisles of Office Depot, asking as he stopped his cart, "You're sure that's it? There isn't' another sheet stuck to that one is there?" Chris laughed and told Noah that there didn't appear to be, but this was the last sheet in the Christmas shopping notebook they had been keeping since it seems like forever, but probably only since the beginning of August. Yes, they had a huge amount of gifts to purchase, it has seemed so for the last 25 years. The list grew every year, sons having added sons, or in some cases daughters, the same with their relatives and friends. Their lane now had twelve houses on it and the "new" lane, the one with the riding school on it had turned into a new housing development about 10 years ago and there were another 35 homes there as well. Their annual Christmas party now had to be held at the local VFW hall as there was nowhere else in their small town to hold all the children and grandchildren, let alone the two new great-grandsons.

Scott and Cal were doing just the same thing, trying to finish their Holiday shopping without the kids present. They were dealing with their own lists and their cart was almost full. They only had a few more gifts for Ray and Joe's boys and they could consider their shopping done for the night. They knew that something always cropped up, but there was still two weeks to go before the big Christmas party.

Ray and Angel happened into the store just as the other two couples were heading to the check out counters. Greetings and handshakes were exchanged all around as many of them told Angel that they wished they were at his Key West property right now and not here in New England with 30-degree temperatures for the whole of the last week. Angel was about to tell the others about the sale of the house and land behind his in Key West when they were approached by Bob and Mark, the owners of the investment firm that Noah's brother's firm had just merged with. Again greetings were exchanged and promises to get together after the holidays were exchanged among all the men when Archie and Brian pushed their empty cart up to the group and the whole thing started all over again, with what had taken on the appearance of a holiday party. The men were all pleased to see each other and soon the couples who still had shopping to do left the group to get their lists checked off before they had to return to their families, and Noah and Chris and Scott and Cal headed to the check out lines to get their selections paid for, arrangements having been made for a gathering at Noah and Chris's home around the middle of January.

About 30 miles away, in Springfield, the fire started at the replacement gas boiler in the basement of the group home for boys run by the DCFS for the state of Massachusetts. Helen Evans was at home with her family at the time and Terry had taken the emergency call and gotten Helen on another phone line as soon as she could and both listened to the night supervisor report the utter destruction the fire had caused, but thankfully the forty boys housed there were all safe and had followed emergency procedures correctly. Caseworkers were getting calls from concerned foster parents in the city and about twenty had already arrived and each had picked up a boy to spend the holidays with them, but that still left 20 boys to house until another facility could be set up for them. Helen started to hit several speed dials in sequence on her cell and was soon speaking in a conference call to the five couples previously mentioned and she was more than surprised to find them all in one place, Christmas shopping at Office Depot in Hadley. What she didn't know was that another couple, new to all the others had just entered the store and spotting Angel and Ray made their way to them to thank them personally for renting them their Key West house which was the catalyst in them finding a vacation home for themselves and their family.

When Tom and Sam heard the conversation Angel and Ray were having with the others, Sam indicated by pointing between him and Tom and nodding his head that they also would step up to the plate and take in two, as it appeared the others on the call were doing and as Ray was telling Helen he had a couple that also wanted to help, Sam and Tom were calling Glenn and Eddie, Carla and Jason, and Tom's boss, the police chief, and his wife and all were agreeable to take in children, they just needed to know what they had to do next. Sam and Tom were put on with Helen as the other couples all gathered again and Helen and Sam and Tom were exchanging information on themselves and their friends who had also offered to help out. It was agreed that all the volunteering couples would drive into Springfield and meet with a staff counselor at the girls' dormitory where the boys were temporarily being sheltered, right across the big parking lot from their burned out dormitory.

With everything said that could be said, up to that point the men all agreed to meet with the DCFS staff which was all at the girls' dormitory with Helen arriving about the same time as them. Sam and Tom called their friends and they too agreed to meet everyone in Springfield, so the group broke up and each couple retrieved their cars and the caravan started for their meetings in the city.

The boys were next to inconsolable, first, their homes had been broken up for one reason or another, and now their temporary home, or in the case of two of the older boys their home, had been destroyed by the fire. The boys who had gone with the local foster parents had been the really little ones, the ones who had the best chances of being adopted.

Scott and Cal had called Ray and Joe and explained the situation, and they, in turn, rushed into cleaner clothes and explained to their boys what was going on and grabbing their paperwork from their completed "parenting class" given by the DCFS they too drove to Springfield to meet up with the other couples.

Once the guys started to arrive one of the social workers on duty in the girls' dormitory began setting up a couple of computer workstations in two of the offices there and hopefully by the time Helen arrived they would be ready to do the emergency placement interviews required. The only reason for these was to assure the state that the placements were being made to couples with stability and the resources to be able to provide a safe and secure home for the lads displaced by the fire. Some of the couples were recent foster or adoptive parents, but some needed their information updated, and some were going to be totally new to "the system".They also needed to make sure they had an accurate accounting of which boy went where and with whom.

When Helen arrived she had already contacted the overnight crew at her office and they arrived at the girls' dorm and with their laptops the three of them began processing for emergency placements and within two hours every couple had been vetted and their backgrounds had been checked and their contact information recorded in their new files or updated in an existing file. It was now time to let the couples meet the boys.

It was kind of like the Saturday afternoon get-togethers at the two dorms, but this time there was a certain sense of urgency in the boys. Not only were they not "dressed to impress", but most of them still smelled of the soot and smoke they had had to escape through. For some it was their first "meet and greet" with prospective foster parents, but for most it was the umpteenth time and for those guys this was bittersweet, they knew they had nowhere to go tonight, and these people were just here out of a sense of duty, not that they cared personally for them, but they put on their brave faces and resolved to put their best foot forward for the adults they were about to meet.

The two groups met in the middle of the room and it took the adults to get conversations started, and once started the boys related their evening of terror s they escaped in a great orderly fashion, and all of the boys met in the corner of the parking lot closest to the girls dorm, right where they were supposed to be. Jason noticed the oldest boy, sitting on his own, reading a book he had obviously rescued from the fire. He went and sat next to the lad and introduced himself. The lad was really very polite, and after telling Jason he was Barton(Bart) Cunningham he asked Jason why he wasn't chatting with the younger guys, and Jason said he saw Bart reading and wondered what was so interesting in the book. Bart told him that he felt the younger boys would have a better chance finding a match if he reduced the numbers even by one. He explained that he would be 18 in another year and would be out on his own so he was trying to educate himself as much as he could, by taking extra classes at school and reading in his spare time, like the book he now held, "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith. Bart started to explain the book to Jason, but Jason placed his hand on Bart's which held the book. He told Bart it was the story of an interracial family and Jason wondered if Bart was reading it to find out some of what he might expect out in the real world. Bart admitted he had started out reading it for that, but he had found out it was a highly recommended title for freshmen and sophomores in college, and if he had a chance to go to college he would have one more item checked off already.

Jason asked Bart if he would like to live with him and his family out in Amherst, as he felt his family could do with Bart in their lives, but he also asked who Bart's best friend was here among the boys. Bart pointed out the redheaded 14-year-old talking to of all people, Carla. Jason asked Bart to introduce his friend to him. Bart introduced Brendan to Jason just as Carla was looking around and wondering where Jason was. When she realized he was right beside her she hugged him, and told him she had found one of the boys she couldn't live without. So that's how Bart and Brendan become fostered by Carla and Jason.

The other couples were having a great time getting to know the other boys and before long friends were introducing a couple to their best friends and soon there were huddles of four all over the room, laughter and giggles all over the place. Once Helen and her assistants had finished their recording of the paperwork and printed out "permission slips" for the couples to have the pairs of boys in their custody they entered the room to see how everyone was getting along. Helen was surprised to see how well everyone was getting on together and soon the foursomes approached her telling her they were ready to take off. As each spoke with her she added the boys' names to the forms she had printed out and an assistant recorded the information in the computer. Emergency vouchers for two hundred dollars for each boy was offered to each of the adult couples, however, all refused them, telling Helen to use the money to assist in the rebuilding efforts, and Archie and Brian, along with all the other couples, told Helen to contact them when funding was needed for the rebuild.

Stops were made along the way to their homes, each couple having to outfit their new charges for at least a week, all of the boys clothing and possessions having been ruined in the fire, so getting them outfitted for at least a week was only the beginning of the shopping that would start on different days for each expanded family, but of course necessities had to be obtained, including toiletries, especially for the older boys. Once at their respective homes there were, even more, introductions to be made as each household had other occupants who were all waiting to meet their new temporary brothers and in many cases, it was older "brothers" who were introduced to younger lads.

Whether it was the holiday season or if it was just that these "new" boys knew that this arrangement was only until their dorm was rebuilt, there was no friction between the young men and the families they were accepted into, in fact, Helen began getting calls by Christmas Eve, just two weeks later. In fact, by noon that day she had received 10 phone calls from the Granby/Amherst families and staff reported that they had received 20 phone calls from the foster families in Springfield that had stepped up and took in the younger boys displaced by the fire. Helen told Terry that night at home that it was certainly a Christmas Miracle that all 60 of the displaced boys had found themselves in the position to be adopted by the end of January, not fostered, but adopted! Terry told Helen that the true miracle was that there were still people out there that had enough love to share that they were willing to accept a "stranger" into their home for the holidays, fall in love with that child, and want to love and nurture that child well into adulthood and beyond. She told Helen that love is a lot like war, it's always been so easy to start, but oh so hard to stop.  

Merry Christmas 2017 Art West