THE LOST CHRISTMAS EVE

Another year has come and past
Like moments through an hourglass
And at the end of this year's trail
An offering, a final tale

Of love, long lost
And then refound
And the child by which
Those dreams were bound

Of a dusty hotel
That was long past old
And the shadows and the memories
It hallways still hold

For things that are old
Have the best tales to tell
And usually,
They tell them well

And so it's here, my dear children
That our story truly starts
When the Lord sent once more to the earth
An angel, with a childlike heart

And on this night His mission was
To find somewhere on this earth
That human that best reflected His Son
And carried on His work

And since this mission from his Lord
Had to be completed on this one night
The angel quickly unfolded his wings
And towards the earth took flight

And this night, in case you have not guessed
Was one more Christmas Eve
When snow and light and angels' flights
All together weave

But of the angel's instructions
There was one thing more
That would make this journey to the earth
Harder than all the ones before

For the Lord had also told the angel
That he could only use his wings twice this Christmas Eve
Once when he descended to the earth
And once more when he would leave
(Not unlike ourselves some think,
Or at least so I believe)

Now this put quite a complication
In what the angel planned
For now he had to choose most carefully
Exactly where he would land

He needed to find a single place
That would represent all mankind
But humans were such a varied lot
Such a place would surely be hard to find

A single place where there would be
Humans of every race and creed
The rich and poor, the thrilled and bored
The failures with those who succeed

But after a few moments
Carefully placed in thought
The answer appeared in the angel's mind
The city called New York

And as he neared that city
Where all those souls did dwell
He felt himself being drawn towards
An old, rundown hotel

For in a city that usually had
Guards at nearly every single door
This one just had a sign that said "Vacancies,
There is always room for one more"

Now why the angel decided to stop there
He could not quite say the reason
Be he thought the sign upon that hotel
Somehow fit the sentiment of the season

Now even after all these years
The building was still a work of art
And though some facade had crumbled here and there
Most still had their parts

The walls were made of granite
Not aluminum or steel
And every pillar and balustrade
Still had its artist's feel

Every gutter had a gargoyle
Every gargoyle had its wings
For angels can appreciate
Other flying things

So he landed on a cathedral roof
Across the street from that hotel
And looked down upon the world below
Where all those souls did dwell

And sitting on that rooftop
With his friend the winter wind
He gazed carefully at that scene below
As he slowly took it in

And so it was in front of this hotel
Our angel did finally arrive
and standing at one corner was a young man
Who caught the angel's eye

He had a small group of children
Gathered round him there
Who all were quietly listening
Which for children is quite rare

He was telling them Christmas tales
And each one brought more children near
Where they nestled round him on those steps
So each word they could clearly hear

He then told them a Christmas story
About how all men are brothers
And when that story had ended
The children clamored for another

"Where does Christmas go
When its day is through?
Where does Christmas go," they said,
"And what does Christmas do?"

Now children have such simple requests
Their wishes are so small
That the young man saw no reason why
He could not grant them all

They liked his stories so much
They begged him not to let it end
So he told them about the Wizards of Winter
Whose winter ball they must attend

How these wizards decorated their whole world
With icicles, frost and snow
And how with the dreams of this night beneath it
It all would magically start to glow

And the snow seemed to obey the young man's every gesture
In the cold December's air
And as for the Wizards' Imperial Ball
Well, they were already there

Now every moment the angel spent listening
His time on earth diminished
But the angel found himself waiting there
Until each story was finished

He had only several hours left
For the quest he had been assigned
But angels like small children
Have trouble keeping track of time

But in the end it seemed this delay
Had turned out for the best
For now there were grownups all around
Listening with the rest

For as they listened to his stories
Each one till the very end
Those adults remembered their own childhoods
And a time when faith was not pretend

Christmas is how
In every nation
That hope is passed
Through generations

From old to young
And sometimes I'm told
It's actually passed
From young to old

Yes, our angel had been quite impressed
With this youth that he had found
But then across the street he heard
An old familiar sound

It was a multitude of voices
From the old cathedral's choir
Singing out about this night
And the hopes that it inspires

After the song was over
Nearly every person there
Went to the cathedral's basement
And started setting up tables and chairs

For that night this church would feed
Any person in life who had less
And both those that gave and those that received
Left that night feeling blessed

Then the angel remembered something
That his Lord's son had once said
On how one truly followed Him
When words and acts were wed

Some people claim to follow Him
But themselves they just deceive
For his Lord's Son had said,
"You will know who truly follows Me
Not by what they say, but by their deeds"

And this church was clearly filled
With kind people of goodwill
But the angel had more time left on this night
And continued to search on still

So the angel left the parishioners
With their Christmas meal in happy bliss
And returned once more to the hotel
To make sure that there was no one there he had missed

And passing by a village square
He heard a brass quartet
Whose Christmas concerto in the key of G
He felt lighten his every step

And so back at the hotel
Our angel again arrived
But this time he went up the front steps
Which, of course, led him inside
(It's one of those things that architects conveniently decide)

Now hotels are quite like people
No two exactly the same
And this one had such a magical past
The angel found himself quite entertained

The foyer still had an elegance
That the years could not disguise
And the shadows of Christmas Eves long disappeared
This night, still gently glided by

For in the hotel, here side by side
The past and the present dwelled
And the ghosts who lived here not only lived
They honestly, lived well

The lobby had a Steinway piano
That was steeped in memories
And some said Duke Ellington's fingers
Still lingered on those keys

There was a grand palace ballroom
Where princesses had once waltzed
Whose beauty and sense of style
The newspapers would constantly exalt

The ghosts of Rockefellers and Vanderbilts
Still met at their Christmas Eve charity balls
Raising money not for themselves
But raising it for all
(And the sound of their children laughing
still echoed in these halls)

Now these spirits of course, could not be seen
By any human eyes
But each one smiled at the angel
When they saw him walking by

And these ghosts reminded the angel
How every human waiting to be born
And every life that had already left
When it was tired out and worn

Were connected by those alive right now
Which gave the living quite a trust,
To pass on what was best and good
Inside of each of us

Now within each guest room he heard many hearts
And behind each heart there was a life
And the angel carefully read them all
With the next hour of that night

When he reached the grand palace ballroom
It was behind closed mahogany doors
And when the angel was passing by it
He could hear music begin once more

It seemed that since the room was built
Musicians did permanently reside
And then the angel did what we all would do
He went to look inside

And there he found such a majestic orchestra
To please all, it would be enough
But then someone plugged a guitar in
And the volume, it crept up

So with a song inspired by Mozart's
Famous "Queen of the Night"
The orchestra added the word, "Winter"
And some notes, some fog, some lights.

He could have stayed there the entire night
For to him music was the voice of God
For it never needed translation
And could lift up lives that were often quite hard

But then he heard a different kind of music
From somewhere else close by
And he followed the trail of those new notes
he found himself outside

The notes led him to a blues bar
That was right next to the hotel
And the angel watched some lonely people enter it
And wondered if this was where all the lonely people did dwell

Then another guardian angel
Who happened to be near
Told him about the old blues bar
And whispered in his ear

"Here the tragically beautiful
And the beautifully tragic
Drift through this night
In a last quest for magic

Their faces are masks
That so artfully disguise
The wounds in their hearts
The scars in their eyes

Now these scars in their eyes
Never hurt, never bleed
But like cracks in a mirror
They distort all they see

For when the heart's an open wound
Its greatest threat, I fear
Is that the salt rubbed into it
Does come from one's own tears

Now there are many places on this earth
That one thinks that God has forgot
But one can often find an angel or a saint
Where one assumes angels and saints are not"

And then the other angel reminded him
Of their Lord's point of view
"You'll know them not by how they appear
You'll know them by what they do"

So when the next person went inside
The angel followed him undetected
But what he found within that bar
Was not quite what he expected

There was an old piano player there
Playing with a honky-tonk sound
And everyone who entered that place depressed
That piano player turned their night around

And one by one he'd draw each person
Out of their self-imposed cage
And before they realized it
He had them singing on the stage

Then a guitarist and a bass player
Read some notes off a music page
And added a little bit of jazz
A sound that never seems to age

Now that old piano player knew
There were other musicians in that crowd
And one by one he brought them up
And the music, it got loud

The band played on and on
With no one looking at their watch
And just when you thought it couldn't get any better
They would turn it up a notch

By this time a harder rocking stage
Would be impossible to find
And though no one was now drinking
The owner did not seem to mind

And the angel marveled how one man
Could turn around a life
And then that life turn around another's
And how it rippled through this night

But there was someone in that room
Whose heart had not been changed
A heart that had grown so hard
You'd have thought it could never be arranged

It was the businessman from downtown
Who had stopped there to rest his feet
And he clung to his drink
(Where he watched his thoughts sink)
While any strangers, he refused to greet

You could see upon his face
How happiness had been so long deferred
It was practically as if unhappiness
Had somehow become preferred

Now the angel had not seen the businessman
Though they had in that room been near
Nor did the angel see him as he left the bar
When he could no longer stand this Christmas cheer

And as the businessman exited the door
He heard someone complaining on the TV
It was the "Grinch" ranting against Christmas
And the man found that he agreed

And though his time was growing strained
He could not walk away from this soul in pain
For in the dark he had now seen
The bleeding of the wound extreme

So along the snow covered sidewalk
The angel did carefully step
Following the trail of blood drops
Combined with tears that had never been wept

And then he saw the businessman
Who had been grumbling about this night
And he wondered how that man had carried this wound
So long throughout his life

He watched the man walk past the church
Where a song seemed to reach out for him
But the man just walked right past it
And would not let it in

Now why this man's soul was bleeding
The angel had to understand
So invisible, he stood by him
And then gently touched his hand

Which caused the man to stand there still
Despite the winter's cold
And while he stood there in that trance
The angel read his soul

It seemed the man was not always like
The man he had become
And that angel wondered how that change had happened
And when it had begun

The man had been born to a kind and religious family
And raised in the Midwest
And all throughout his childhood
This man, clearly, had been blessed

He grew up believing, among other things,
Man was made to the image of God
He went to school, observed all rules
While working very hard

He had always tried to help others
Excelled at nearly every task
And when he'd graduated high school
Of course, he was the first one in his class

And in his eighteenth summer
When it was time for him to leave
He had offers from several colleges
All of them Ivy League

And at college in all his studies
He always received straight "A"'s
And when he tried his hand in theater
He got the lead in the senior play

It appeared to nearly everyone
There was not talent that he lacked
And for three years on the football team
He was, the star quarterback

And there he also met the girl
Who did become his wife
With her, his world was now complete
He had the perfect life

When they had graduated college
They were wed in a ceremony quite grand
Then they moved to New York
In a dream they seemed caught

Where all had been perfectly planned
She decorated their Park Avenue apartment
In a 1920's Art Deco style
And six months after they had moved in

She told him, they would soon be having a child
And after their first ultrasound
He knew they were having a son
Their lives could not have been better

And they had only just begun
Together they arrived early at the hospital
On the delivery date
The father was taking no chances
And did not want to risk being late

But while waiting outside the delivery room
He could tell that something was going wrong
For too many doctors were rushing in
With none coming out for too long

When her own doctor finally came out
With several nurses at his side
He said that his wife had started hemorrhaging
And despite their best efforts, she died

Then in an effort to console him
A nurse gave him his newborn to hold
But from the way the child felt limp in his arms
He knew there was still more bad news to be told

The doctor then gave the prognosis
As gently as anyone could
But before he could finish explaining
The father only too well understood

The child had been cut off from oxygen
For minutes, which is far to long
The damage was now irreversible
His brain permanently malformed

He'd never hold a job,
Learn to read or ever talk
And it would be a miracle
If the child even learned how to walk

And with those words the father felt
His entire world falling apart
And he stumbled for the words to express
The tearing inside of his heart

He cried out, why did God have to take her
While she was still so young
And then as if to cut him deeper
Leave this thing here as his son

"Please explain to me God's wisdom
How could He decide
To take from me my precious wife
While leaving this alive

There is no reason for this life
Why does he even exist
And if he had never been born
There is no way he'd have ever been missed

If man is made in God's image
Then something here is surely amiss
For there is nothing of God
Nothing of God
Nothing of God
Nothing of God
Nothing of God in this"

And then he asked for the child
To be placed in a state run home
And after he had signed the papers
He walked into that night alone

And in this world he found unkind
He built a wall around his mind
And every year he'd add new parts
Until it had also enclosed his heart

He kept his job and paid his debts
As he slowly became a silhouette
Of a man walking among the tombs
While living his life within his wounds

He distanced himself from all his friends
Even his sisters and brothers
And as time it went by, he developed his eyes
So they could only see the flaws in others

With this final glimpse, the angel stepped away
And the man shook himself out of his trance
Then continued his walk back towards his home
And few would have given his soul half of a chance

And the angel himself felt helpless
As he watched that old man there
So he did what even humans do
And he quickly said a prayer

And as the prayer flew to his Lord
The angel did decide
To carefully follow the old man
And stay closely by his side

For on this night can one deny
The gift of a more sympathetic eye
To cast upon our fellow man
and on this night to understand

The frailty of childhood dreams
Like fireflies over summer streams
And if one dared to remove time's veil
Could one retrace those childhood trails?

But whispers in the winter's wind
Told of rescued dreams, forgiven sins
And who among us shall be deemed
To rescue some forgotten dream?

So on this night of Christmas Eve
As once again the spirits weave
Its snowswept dreams and colored lights
With bits of magic into each life

And as the snow comes gently down
Its soul intent to reach the ground
To cover scars the world still feels
Perhaps to give them time to heal

For as men invest in money
And professors in what they know
God invests in mercy
Like winter invest in snow.

Now the old man was nearing a toy shop
Where he could hear a music box kind of sound
From a miniature carousel with its miniature horses
All circling faithfully around

And a little girl wearing a Russian style coat
Was carefully looking inside
At the horses and knights and the trains with their lights
While she was imagining they all were alive

For at this time a child will dare
To see what is perhaps not there
Or at least not there to adult eyes
Who have forgotten how to fantasize

Now that young girl outside the store
Was tryng to capture snow's magic
But each flake melted at her touch

And while chasing an elusive snowflake
That was determined to reach the ground
She bumped into the businessman passing by
And nearly knocked him down


And thinking she was in trouble
The child quickly apologized
But the man was not accepting it
She could see it in his eyes

She explained she had been looking in the toy shop
That tomorrow would be Christmas Day
But the man muttered words she could not understand
So she searched for something else she could say

"Do you have any children?" The child asked the man
"No." was the instant reply
And though he said it in his firmest voice
In his heart he knew he had lied

The girl was getting on his nerves
Which were already shot
Something about her bothered him
But he could not say quite what

Then he noticed the time was approaching midnight
What was she doing on the street?
When he asked the girl this question
The child seemed to retreat

She said she was staying with her parents
At the hotel, right next door
They were there for just this one night
In room twelve twenty-four

Then he said, "You best get back there
as quick as you can fly"
And he watched as she ran all the way
Until she was safely back inside

Then he took several steps
In the direction towards his home
But then he hesitated
And took out his mobile phone

He called up the institution
Where he had left his son
To find out if he was still there and alive
Wondering if the past could be undone

The operator who answered, searched the computer
To see if the child had survived
And she was sincerely happy to tell him
"Your son is no longer here, but his is still alive!"

Then the lady who was very kind
Said, "If you have a short while
I can give you all the information
That is here inside his file

I see that at the age of twelve
He had finally learned to walk
And could understand most things people said
But has never learned to talk

He's living uptown in the Bronx
At a boarding house hotel"
And then the lady gave him the phone number
And hotel's address as well

And for the first time in many years
The man thouhgt about his life
And all the things he had left behind
And, of course, he thought about his wife

And he wondered if she had lived
The things they might have done
But really most of all right now
He thought about his son

If he went there and saw his son
What words could he possibly say
Would his own child recognize him
And if he did, woould he turn away?

Dare he rekindle this hope
Perhaps to only watch it die
And standing there in this man's place
I wonder, would you or I?

Now the angel knew of enough time passes by
Any hope can be smothered
So before it was dead, to the first prayer he had said
The angel quickly added another

The old man stood there thinking
While staring in that old toy shop
With its carousel still turning round
In front of a music box clock

For what good's a clokc without a chime
A useless thing that just keeps time
Recording moments that come and leave
But this clock's chimes struck midnight
Upon a lost Christmas Eve

And when the final chime had spoken
And the twelfth bell had finally rung
The indecision in the father was broken
He now knew what had to be done

So he got into a yellow cab
And prayed that it mght lead
Through all this snow and streetlight glow
To a past he might retrieve

When the taxi dropped him off
At the boarding house hotel
It was a rundown building
With a musty, rundown smell

And he asked for his son
From the hotel's night desk clerk
Who said his son was not there
He was not back from work

When the father said that was impossible
The clerk replied, "I'm not here to debate
But he works at the hospital, just down the block
If you want you can sit here and wait
But he never returns til real late."

Then the father tried asking another question
But the clerk went back to watching his TV
Which was also playing, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"
And the father mused, "This movie has not sympathy,
Well, at least not when it comes down to me"

Once outside he saw the hospital's entrance
And went to information by the front door
Who confirmed that his son had a job there
And worked up on the seventh floor

So he took the elevator up to that floor
Which was marked "Maternity"
And the man knew in his heart that this was a mistake
For his son working here could not be

But the nurse on duty reconfirmed that he did
And since her rounds were about to begin
If he would like to follow her
She would gladly take the father to him

So he followed her to a large dark room
That to him seemed unusually empty
Except for several incubators glowing on the right
Each with a trembling baby

These infants were all extremely frail
And obviously in incredible pain
And this sight cut deep into that father's soul
And he asked the nurse, please, to explain

"These children were born to mothers
Who were addicted to crack cocaine
And these children are born in complete withdrawal
For that drug is still deep in their veins

We can give them no other drugs to ease their withdrawals
Since they are born premature and quite frail
And any form of pain killer
Could easily cause their small hearts to fail"

"And what does my son do here?"
The father asked, "He is not a patient, I assume"
The nurse did not say a single word
But nodded to the far left corner of the room

And there the father saw his son
Who looked like himself when he was a younger man
Rocking back and forth in a rocking chair
A trembling infant held in his hands

And in his arms the child did not cry
But slept to silent lullabies
And his son rocked that newborn back and forth
Until finally, a dream was caught
But still at his rocking, his son faithfully kept
Till that poor child's trembling had also, finally, left

Then the nurse whispered softly
Ubti tge father's ear
Somthing that a blind man could see
But the father needed to hear

Wispered to him in this room
Filled with mankind's misbegotten
Something that the father had known once
But somehow had forgotten

She said, "It is this way with each of us
We all need to be held, at least twice
Once upon the day that we are born
And once more when we leave this life

Your son has been coming to this place
Since as long as I've been working ehere
He's never missed a single day
In nearly twenty years

He always arrives promptly on time
But a time card he does not keep
For he never leaves this maternity room
Until every last child is alseep"

Then the nurse noticed the father
Trying to choke back the things he now felt
So mentioning she had to continue her rounds
She quietly excused herself

So he was now alone in the darkness
Between the past and future caught
Not knowing what to do
As his mind flooded with so many thoughts

Some bearty comes too early
While its moment never waits
And some beauty is always there
But never seen, till it's too late

Look! There is a moment
It has just slipped away
And so we lose our lives
In such ordinary ways

Where do we get our dreams from?
Where do we get our faith?
Is it something that we are born with
Or is it something for which we must wait?

The mist of things we once believed
The childhood truths for which we grieve
And in our lives could we have missed
Those that in the dark, the angels kiss

Looking at his son across the room
He feared to cross that divide
But how long could he stay in this dark
That allows us all to hide

Is there a wrong to great in life
That it undoes every good we've ever done
Is there an act so good it would undo all our wrongs
Every single one?

And in putting his whole
Life into the gesture
Would failing make it
Any lesser?

Then through the window he thought he saw
In the falling snow so near
The outline of his son's mother's face
But then it disappeared

It was only there for a second
And a second's not long, but yet
It was enough to cause that man
To take that very first step

And that step was followed by another
In that room still lit so dim
And before he realized how far he had gone
His son was directly in front of him

Then the father noticed on the windowsill
An old photo that he long ago had seen
It was a picture of him and his wife
When they were both about nineteen

It was leaning against a folder
That said "Property of the Deceased"
And underneath was his wife's name
And the date it had been released

It was obviously her personal possessions
That had been given to his son
Because since he had left them all behind
The child was the only one

His son must have always kept it with him
For the folder was weathered and torn
And he must have gazed at that picture countless times
For it was also all tattered and worn

Then his son noticed him standing there
And from his task looked up
And then looked at the picture beside him
And that one look, was enough

He recognized it was his father
That was now standing there
And gave him a smile of pure love and forgiveness
And of the past, he did not care

He did not care where he had been
The whys, the wheres, the hows
He only cared that his father was there
Standing by him now

Then the father turned and walked across the room
Which by now had lost its distance
And went to the nearest incubator
And picked up a trembling infant

And with the child withing his arms
He returned to his son
And all the pain within his soul
At that moment was undone

And he sat in the rocking chair beside him
With the life he had retrieved
And side-by-side together
They rocked all through that Christmas Eve

Now all that had occurred here this night
The angel had clearly seen
Not unlike an old fashioned movie
Upon a silvered screen
That borders on the edge of a
Forgotten childhood dream

With every sweep of those wings
Across time and space he soared
Until he found himslf standing
Back in heaven, before his Lord

And he told his Lord the name of the father's son
But then he hesitated
Like a child in school unsure of his answer
But the Lord, He patiently waited

Then the angel added the names
Of the parishioners at the church
The musicians, the storyteller
The operator and the hospital nurse

Eventually there was hardly a person
That the angel had missed
And then at the very end he placed
The father's name, also on that list

That anyone could reflect his Lord's Son
Was now the angel's view
All it took was to follow the simple words of His Son
"To do unto others, as you would have others do unto you?

Then the Lord smiled at His angel
And said, "You hae done more than your task
It's a gift that eyes rarely have
That can see further than they are asked."

And so this night is ending
So close to where it did start
As the angel slept deep that night
Within his Lord's own heart

For hope never dies
At worst it only sleeps
And all we surrender
Christmas safely keeps

Through the cold winter nights
Of the longest Decembers
Till here by starlight
We begin to remember

That in the very end
The message Christmas is sending
Is that it is never too late
To change any life's ending



by Paul O'Neill



Post script:


The next morning, Christmas, the father and son went to the Grand Hotel looking for the little girl in room twelve twenty-four. The clerk told them there was no such room and that there was no little girl staying at the hotel at all. Mystified, they went back to the street and the folder tore that was holding the keepsakes of his wife that the son had kept. Out fell a picture of his wife at the age of nineteen when they had met. On the back was a poem that he had written. "If a single tear fell from your eyes into the ocean, and then washed up on some far and distant shore, I would still recognize that teardrop, for in the end that tear would still by yours."


Another picture was there, one of his wife which he had not seen before. She was a very young girl wearing a Russian styled coat. It was also the girl he had met outside of the toy store the night before.

When I copied the poem above, I had no idea that I would have a "Lost Christmas Eve."