Hope for you from a Milazzo Christmas past

Excerpt from the Christmas Chapter of:

All The King’s Horses – Finding Purpose and Hope in Brokenness and Impossibility

Chapter 18: Nothing Will Be Impossible

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call Him Jesus … Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a Virgin?” Luke 1:31; 34

Oh, how hard it is to keep pressing on in life, yes, even after our hearts are aflame with passion, and after we’ve become convinced we will never again shrink back from following so great a King. Continuous battles make us weary. Monotony wears us down.

It’s not that each step forward is so difficult, on its own. Most steps are, well, just steps. But after traveling mile after endless mile in your personal marathon and still seeing no finish line anywhere in sight, this is what makes an otherwise ordinary step so very hard to take. Your race has come to seem downright impossible, even absurd, not only to your doubters, but also to you. Honestly, you’re not even sure you’re on the right path anymore. The real battle you are fighting as you consider dropping out of the race is not just your battle against monotony and pain. Your hardest battle is to believe what is visibly impossible, as God remains silent.

Bryson had worked excruciatingly hard for four full years now. Others saw him merely as a disabled child who couldn’t walk without being held upright. They wondered why he wasn’t in a wheelchair. We observed our son’s endless setbacks with eyes that saw way back to the beginning. We were grateful that he was even alive. We remembered his body shaking with seizures and writhing with fevers as a baby. We remembered that he couldn’t even sit up on the floor without falling over as a three-year-old. He’d come such a long way but he was nearly seven now, and still crippled. Despite the doubters and skeptics, we clung to our dream of seeing our son walk independently one day.

It would have been reasonable to ease up on him, to have him attend school and let him merely rest and play afterwards, like every other child. But every other child could run and play. Our son had to sit and watch them do it. If we quit now, the slow, steady progress he had fought for would begin to unravel, and the prediction of the skeptics would become a self-fulfilling prophesy … …

Several pages intentionally omitted … see conclusion of this chapter below:
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Scrooged

During the previous spring, when Bryson had first reached ten steps in his independent walking, we established a very ambitious goal for him to reach 25 independent steps. He was promised that when he reached this goal he would receive his greatest “pwize” ever: a battery powered, Power Wheels Porsche. This vehicle, which he’d seen on T.V., was so cool it made me want to be a kid again. He desperately wanted it.

My wife used her wonderful artistic ability to create a colorful drawing of an Olympic Track, with Bryson standing at the place marked “10,” for the number of steps he had achieved thus far. The Finish-Line was marked as “25.” I promised Bryson that the very day he reached the Finish-Line I’d go out and buy him that Porsche. It was nearing Christmas now, and he still hadn’t achieved his goal.

Each holiday season we had attempted to get Bryson excited about Christmas, but we weren’t sure how much was registering. As a 7-year-old Kindergartener, it was almost as if someone had drawn open the drapes allowing light to come flooding into his brain-injured mind. He was electrified with anticipation. Tim, now 4, was enthralled too. Janelle loved Christmas, but she was 9 now. She had decided four years earlier that there was no Santa Claus. Realizing how disappointed I was, she decided to humor me for another year, pretending that she still believed (it hasn’t been easy for her, raising a dad).

I loved every bit of it, the Christmas movies and the cookies, the Advent calendars, the decorating, and of course, reading The Night Before Christmas to the boys every night at bedtime (Janelle drew the line here, only sitting on my lap for epics like “Holly and Ivy”). And don’t start acting shocked that someone writing a Christian book teaches his kids about Santa. I’ll have you know that Saint Nicholas was a real person from a real place who lived in a real time in history and … all right, I know my position is weak. Let’s just not have this argument, and I’ll get on with the chapter, okay!?

One of our favorite movies was Dickens Christmas Carol with George C. Scott as Scrooge. It was so cool that we were together as a family watching this for the first time. We dimmed the lights and we were all snuggled in eating popcorn, and then, well, the mood suddenly changed. The story line about Tiny Tim not being able to walk brought my wife and me to tears as we looked across the room toward our own struggling child.

As mentioned, we were grateful that Bryson was no longer in danger of dying, but he was crippled far worse than Tiny Tim. And while Tiny Tim’s mind and speech were clear and sharp, our son’s intellect and ability to speak remained garbled and confused. I wondered if my son would ever run and jump into my arms as Tiny Tim ran to Scrooge at the end. As we watched that scene, part of me was afraid that he would view Tiny Tim’s condition and suddenly realize that he too, was handicapped. But as I glanced across the room, my son’s inability even to comprehend his dilemma made me more sad than afraid.

He was now up to 21 steps on his colorful chart, edging ever nearer to the 25-steps he needed for that Porsche. But even on the “good” days he still experienced only a few successful attempts toward his goal. Most times he fell after just a few steps. After all these years we still had no satisfactory answer for his frustrating patterns of regression, which seemed to recur each time momentum began to build toward independent walking.

Well, wouldn’t you know it!? It was December 11, 1992, and I remember it like it was yesterday, because there was an absolute blizzard in the northeast. This meant it was going to be a white Christmas, and I love white Christmases. But I remember this day even more vividly because this was the day our little champion crossed that finish line on his colorful Olympic Track.

Since we always counted the number of his steps out loud, Bryson knew what he had done the moment his body remained upright as I mouthed “23 … 24 … 25,” but our champion still took 3 more steps, making it all the way to 28 before falling into my arms. For an instant we were all stunned, and none of us said anything. Then, well you already know what happened. Pandemonium broke out, along with our tears. I screamed for my wife to come in from the kitchen and we hugged each other and we hugged our volunteers, and we all took turns picking up and hugging our champion, and throwing him in the air. The excitement went on for several minutes.

Bryson was excited, of course, but he was growing a bit impatient with all this. Sure he was proud. He was the one who pressed on through month after month of exasperating failure. It had taken seven months to reach that finish line. Of course, he had received Matchbox cars and other “pwizes” along the way. But now, he realized he had finally earned the “pwize” of his life, and he wasn’t going to wait a minute longer.

I tried my best to explain that we were smack in the middle of a snowstorm, and it would be necessary to wait until the next day. But after such an exultant moment, Bryson began to look at me as if I was Scrooge himself, and in view of his disappointment (and his pit-bull tenacity – he simply wasn’t taking “no” for an answer on this day), I soon found myself navigating through a blizzard in search of a Porsche.

I don’t know how I ever made it in my 1986 Volvo, which had rear wheel drive and was terrible in the snow. But the “Tons of Toys” store in Wyckoff was open, and Jerry the owner helped me get the oversized package strapped to the car. Somehow I made it home alive. After my wife and I maneuvered this monstrous vehicle through the doorway, Bryson sat in it for hours pretending he was Mario Andretti. He was kind enough to let Tim sit in it too, very proud that he could provide such a thrill for his younger brother. Even Janelle graced us with a try, stooping low from her much more mature play with Barbies. It would be springtime before we could bring that Porsche outside for a real ride. Bryson didn’t seem to care. Ever the dreamer, the pretending was just so real.

Nothing Will Be Impossible

That Christmas season was a time to rejoice in so many things. Our champion’s poster remained on the wall next to the Christmas tree, with the Finish Line already broken. It was by far our most prized decoration. Bryson’s time in Kindergarten was going wonderfully, better than we could have dreamed. And while my work situation was peculiar, it was more than meeting our needs. I was also thankful that the powers of Hell that seemed to descend so viciously against our struggling family to destroy it had been denied, at least for another year. And what a joy it was to see Bryson, with all his mental challenges, develop a very simple love for the baby Jesus that Christmas season.

And for all you doubters, Santa did come to our house that year. In addition to leaving a great stash of toys, he took the time to decorate our little champion’s prize Porsche. And before he ate his cookies and left, he was nice enough to leave a note, which I have kept all these years. Typing it here doesn’t really do it justice, since it was a handwritten note. But it’s just as well, since Santa’s handwriting might possibly cause some of you readers to put an extra dose of rum (or two) in your eggnog, and neither Santa nor I would want to drive any of you nice people to drink. Anyway, with three kids sitting on my lap (after opening all the presents, of course) I read the letter. It was addressed to Bryson.

12/25/92
Dear Bryson,
I have been up in the North Pole, hearing about the wonderful progress you have been making in your walking. I am so proud of you, and I want you to know that by the time I come to your house again next Christmas, you will be walking all around – anywhere you want. You are getting stronger and someday you will run and play baseball and all the other sports you love. In the meantime, keep on working hard and obeying your dad. The exercises you are doing with him will make you walk better and better.
I wanted to surprise you by decorating your new Porsche. You earned this car by working hard. Walking 28 steps is a big, big accomplishment. I hope you are proud of yourself. We are all (including Mrs. Claus and the Elves) very proud of you. You are a terrific boy and you have a good mommy and daddy and a wonderful sister Janelle and a good buddy in your brother Timmy (I like him a lot).
Merry Christmas,
Love, Santa

P.S. Thanks to you, Timmy and Janelle for the good cookies and milk. Your mom is a good baker.

All in all, this had turned out to be a fabulous Christmas. Yet as joyous and memorable as it was, our champion did not again achieve that magical number of 25 steps that season. Unforeseen obstacles were about to appear in his rocky path in the months ahead that would derail his march toward freedom, including a very distressing period of illness and regression, the worst yet. Sadly, Santa’s prediction of Bryson “walking all around” did not come true that next year, nor did it come true for several more Christmases to come.

Doubters abounded, as they always do when your chips are way down. The skeptics weren’t the least bit surprised by his regression, and they wondered why we continued doing his foolish “home program” at all. His record of 28 steps was now fading from view, and I couldn’t deny that this cherished goal had been achieved under tightly controlled conditions with spotters all around. My son was growing older now. For his own good, and ours, some thought we should settle him into a wheelchair. Others thought he might walk with the assistance of a walker one day. But on his own?! Crippled children run to their “Scrooges” at the end of feature films, but not in real life. There was no need to keep chasing unreachable fantasies, nor to keep pushing him so relentlessly.

Oh, how hard it is to keep pressing on, especially after traveling mile after endless mile of your personal marathon, and seeing no finish line anywhere in sight. Still, each successive December continued to bring a magical quality into our home. One year soon, Bryson’s little brother Tim left Santa behind, a very warm memory of his childhood, even as Janelle had done. With his much simpler mind, Bryson continued to believe well into his teen-aged years. Santa always left him a note, which I read each Christmas morning as he sat on my lap, listening eagerly. These many years later, I now realize I needed to write those notes of encouragement to my son even more than he needed to hear them.

The letters always made it clear that Santa was very proud of him. They encouraged him to keep working hard, promising him that good days were coming. Sometimes I searched for something honest and encouraging to say to my boy, while groping for something to salve my own struggling soul. Ever the aging child on my lap, Bryson kept clinging to his cherished dreams, looking to his dad to lead him toward hope. I never let him know how badly I was struggling now, but the temptation to let go of my own dreams and give in to despair was immense. I wasn’t even sure we were on the right path anymore. On my weaker days the whole blasted thing seemed so impossible, my son’s progress, the saving of our struggling family, holding on to my career, all of it!

Through the years I’ve come to understand that we all need to be reminded of something we tend to forget when our chips are way down. It’s always been this way, I think. Even the blessed mother Mary needed to be reminded, prior to the very first Christmas. The things spoken to her by the Archangel nine months earlier had caused her to be perplexed: “How can this be, since I am a Virgin?” Gabriel chose not to contend the point on her level, because on her level, he knew she was right. In human terms, the things he proclaimed to her that night were indeed impossible.

The Angel had reassured her by saying, “Do not be afraid,” but nine months had now passed, and not much had happened to assuage Mary’s fears. Joseph did not divorce her, or have her killed for adultery, as could have occurred in those days. Finally, he did believe her about the pregnancy, after he was visited by the Angel too. But that had not prevented others from talking. They had both been disgraced.

A decree had gone out from Caesar Augustus, and a long, wearisome journey was taken, on a donkey no less, through a perilous land full of thieves. At long last, they arrived in Bethlehem, exhausted, as time for her labor drew near. She had every reason to be perplexed, ever since the Angel first visited, but now, who could have guessed this?! No room in the Inn? She would be forced to deliver her child in a stinking, unsanitary stable. Mary’s life, much like yours and mine sometimes, had taken a turn for the absurd.

She viewed her predicament from every angle. She couldn’t begin to understand how this was all going to work out. As her pain intensified in that cold little barn, Mary groped to remember just exactly what the Archangel had told her nine months before. What reason had he given her not to fear? She remembered him saying, “Greetings, favored one.” Some favor, indeed! Her life was now a wreck. Maybe the Angel’s visitation was just a dream after all. Either way, it didn’t seem to matter anymore, as she writhed in the hay. Her life and her circumstances seemed more ludicrous and impossible than ever.

But I suppose if God intended to keep us imprisoned in the realm of the possible, He would never have sent that first Christmas at all. The Angel’s words were later recorded, but not for Mary. She has long since passed her test. It is now time to pass our test, and overcome our fears. Life ebbs away too quickly not to do so.

When our most cherished dreams have been shattered, and it seems the doubters of our lives just may be right, when it appears we’d be absolute fools to dare to take even one more step forward, we need to remember something that is easily forgotten. God chose to enter our world during Mary’s darkest hour, even as the cry of a Baby pierced the blackness of that night. Mary finally did remember the Angel’s promise then. It is now time for us to remember, to lift our eyes to that Baby, and believe:

The angel answered and said to her… ‘For nothing will be impossible with God.’ Luke 1: 37

Copyrighted Material from Book entitled All The King’s Horses – Finding Purpose and Hope in Brokenness and Impossibility
All Rights Reserved – Contact Barry J. Milazzo: barry@atkh.com 973-714-1479