The Best Request
The toys were getting more complicated. It was getting strange now. He and his family used to make them in the shop. That’s one thing the old fella always enjoyed through the years. He liked to work with his hands. There was something satisfying that could not be achieved through other means.
He looked at the block of wood sitting in front of him. It would be a good passion project, like the old days. The children rarely asked for things like this anymore. They seemed to only want things that could found in a catalogue or by staring blankly into the soft glow of one of the hundreds of screens that made up their day.
He took a deep breath. Things were changing and so too would he. He had no choice. The children were the same. The toys were different. He felt this way every year since he began.
This request gave him a warm feeling that he hadn’t felt in a long time though.
The little girl wanted a rocking-elephant. He chuckled to himself thinking about it. He took a pencil in his hand and began to mark the first piece of wood where he would cut it. He had a piece of an old tree that he would carve out the body and head of the animal. Then he would mount it on rockers that he had built.
Children were children. Play was play.
He began sawing the top of the wood. They all worried about whether or not he would catch them being naughty. This was a relative term. The world made them naughty. They were inherently good.
All of them.
Not one child ever started off with hate. Ever watched a group of children playing? Even before they can speak, they love. They may be curious about their differences but never hateful. They can be cruel when something is different, but this usually comes later when they mirror the naughty adults airing their ignorance and fear under the guise of sweet words.
Ever heard a parent say sweetly, “Well we just don’t play with those people sweetie”?
The child asks, “Why? We were pretending to be cowboys, or married, or playing house, or pretending to be space ranger ballerinas.” (or anything at all and this is the beauty of children).
The parent replies, “Because that’s how it is honey. We just don’t believe the same things.”
They pick up their little package of joy and carry them away unaware (and sometimes acutely aware) of the fact that they have placed a seed that will grow. The child is now aware that something is different in a bad rather than a curious way. The hour of joy wrought of the innocent love between small hands is forever tainted.
And that is the fault of the grown-ups, who were once children.
Sweat formed on the man’s brow as he made another cut. He remembered all of the children. Some of the children grew to be good. Some grew to be naughty. But inside he remembered the good that started off.
He did not linger in his mind on the adults that were naughty. This was not his realm. Still, he was hopeful as ever that they would mend their ways. He recalled the beautiful innocence that they once were when they were small. But this was not in his hands. His world was the world of the children. It was absolutely essential.
A child could change the world one day. The best way he knew how to make a good grown up was to make child feel loved. The toys were not the point, they were just a symbol. He realized that material things send a mixed message and that a child would play with a stick if they had nothing else.
There were so many children in the world now too. When he first started the list was much shorter. The children continued to believe though and as a result, his magic grew stronger. Time was relative for him. That one night was much longer for him and he would reach every child that believed if he could.
Sometimes in the naivety of being a first time parent, after loving a child for a few years, the blessing of a new child is bestowed. In moments of anxiety about how the relationships will change (no matter the makeup of the household) a parent will sometimes wonder, how could I have more room in my heart? Will I be able to love both children (or more) as much as I already love what I have?
Then the magic happens in the heart of the good parent. Their heart expands and makes more room than they thought was possible. They make more love. They make the same magic which allows the jolly old elf to keep up with the times.
And so his heart will continue to grow. And so will his magic, enabling him to get around the world and deliver his toys as a reminder of this goodwill on earth.
The magic is strong. It will always grow. Some people say that it is not so and that we are worse off than ever. The old one disagrees. There is less disease, less poverty, less hate than ever before. The thing that is different now, is that fewer people can keep on blinders to the hate and poverty and disease that remains. It makes it seem like things are worse than ever. In reality, this is progress. Finally other grownups are able to see what he sees constantly.
He will build this rocking-elephant toy the old way though. No need for magic here. He thinks, only for a moment about the children who are hurting, that he cannot get to for whatever reason, and is saddened by it. He thinks of those little ones who are sick and ones who are hungry or have no homes. These things bring a tear to his eye as he chisels the block of wood. It weighs on his mind often. It makes him strive to do better, to try and fix more and help more.
The world is not fair. He has been here longer than most. Even with his big heart and all of the magic at his disposal, he is not under some delusion that the world is fair. If it were, the little girl that gets this elephant would be able to ride it for more than 6 months. Her Christmas tree is in a hospital.
He knows that when she rides it, it will bring joy to her heart for a moment in a life that has been mostly painful. But she still gets up each morning and only wants to be loved. You wouldn’t know that anything was wrong with her at all if you judged by her smile. Who knows what she could have been?
He sands off the edges of the elephant. He is quite satisfied with the end look and laughs with joy at the thing he has made. It does feel good, “HO HO HO!” he bellows, unable to contain it.
He will find some gray paint and a pink bow.
He considers the state of things again.
People are getting older and staying young though, he thought. He remembered his youth long ago. Soon everyone would experience close to the length of life that he has endured. Science could be magic. One day in the future, he hoped, he would no longer have to say goodbye in his heart to little girls in hospitals. One day they would have fixes for these things.
He remembered polio and smallpox and how these things were mostly fixed. He remembered all of the things that came before it. It was getting better, he thought. It had to get better or else he was doing this for naught.
One day people would live as long as he had. Soon they would have to learn to deal better with seeing everything in the world as he did. They would learn. He had learned and it took a long time. When that time comes, he thought, he would be done. All the children would be seen to. All the children would be loved. They would grow into grown-ups that in turn lived long and saw all.
Once people saw what it was like to live as long as he and could see as much as he, they would realize that there was no point to doing anything less. Then they would all fulfill his request.
In the future we would all be Santa Claus.
