DURING THESE WEEKS ONE thing did go right. On December 6 we dedicated the Christmas Box Angel statue in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. The statue had been completed by the foundry and placed upon its granite pedestal just the day before the dedication.
On the day of the dedication ceremony the weather turned inclement. Then, that evening, as Keri and I got ready for the ceremony, it began to rain. It does not often rain in Utah in December. It snows. Utahns are used to snow—they practically relish it. But no one goes out in winter rain. I was angry at first. Haven’t these people suffered enough, God? I thought. I did not believe anyone would come to the ceremony.
An hour before the event, as darkness fell, cars began to arrive. They came sporadically at first, then they came more steadily, until a long line of cars snaked through the cemetery, visible only by their headlights. It reminded me of the final scene of the movie Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. That night hundreds of grieving parents braved the elements to attend the statue’s dedication.
Among those parents was a woman named Joyce Williams. Joyce had driven from Idaho to attend the ceremony, bearing two hundred long-stem white roses that she handed out to anyone who did not have a flower to lay.
Joyce shared her story with me. More than twenty-five years ago their only son, a two-and-a-half-year-old boy named Robbie, was killed in a tragic farming accident, beneath a tractor being driven by her husband. For all those years he held his pain inside, refusing to share his feelings or hurt. Then, one day, as they drove to visit their daughter, they listened to a radio interview of me talking about The Christmas Box. To Joyce’s surprise her husband became very interested. He told Joyce that he wanted a copy of the book. They stopped in a bookstore for a copy but no one had heard of it. As she turned to leave, a small green book caught her eye. It was The Christmas Box. They brought it home and they took turns reading it. For the first time in more than two decades, he began to speak of their son and the tremendous pain he carried over his loss. His healing had finally begun.
The ceremony that night was simple. A neighborhood children’s choir sang Brahms’s “Lullaby.” I gave a dedicatory prayer, reminding those in attendance that while the earth beneath this statue held no child, no cemetery holds a child, for in God all children live. I also told them that the angel was not to be worshiped or idolized. It was just bronze. The healing could come only from God and the love and support of one another. As strangers huddled together for warmth, I realized that the weather was perfect for the event. These people had endured a much greater storm than could be delivered by clouds. And the way through such storms was to hold to one another for warmth and strength. God knew what he was doing after all.
Near the end of the evening a woman said something to me that truly summed up the event. “Thank you,” she said, wiping away her tears. “Finally someone has said it’s okay to cry.”
That night my father presented me with a wooden box that he had handcrafted from burled walnut, patterned after the box I described in The Christmas Box.
Joyce Williams called me the day after the ceremony. That night she had planned to stay in Salt Lake City, but with so much on her mind, she decided instead to make the long drive home to Idaho. A few hours before arriving home, her car tape player broke. She had been listening to a Kenny G tape called Miracles.
She fussed with her tape player for some time as she drove, then eventually gave up on it, finishing her ride in silence. She arrived in her city around 2A.M. In spite of the hour, she decided to stop and visit her son’s burial spot.
The ground of the cemetery was lit with newly fallen snow and all the headstones were covered with powder. All except for her son’s. She thought this curious, and as she stared silently at her son’s grave, the tape in her car suddenly began to play. The song it played was Brahms’s “Lullaby,” the same song the children had sung at the angel dedication. She bowed her head and wept.
Dear Richard,
Thank you for the beautiful story, The Christmas Box. My son Ben died three years ago, so, you see, this story holds a deeper meaning for me.
This morning I received a gift from a dear friend—your book, a white flower and a crystal angel. I immediately sat down and read The Christmas Box and wept for the pain of my loss, the joy of the gift and the delight of the message it brought me. I felt comforted and full of hope in being reminded that one day I will be able to hold my child again.
I have ordered flowers to be delivered to the statue dedication at the cemetery in Salt Lake City.
Most sincerely,
Sue
Dear Mr. Evans,
I have just finished reading The Christmas Box for the second time. I’m sure I will read it many more times. I would like to thank you for writing this book. It is now my favorite book and I have given copies to special friends because I think the story is so important—especially to people like myself, who have had children die.
My daughter Julie died August 25 at the age of 17. My baby daughter, Clara, died the next evening. I was six months pregnant with her.
After Julie died, a lot of unusual things happened and still do. Julie was always a caregiver. She would drop important work if someone else needed her. I know she is even more of the savior now that she is not of this world.
In 1995 I started seeing your book everywhere I went and kept hearing her tell me I needed to read it. One day I had been especially bothered by her guiding me to the book, but I still didn’t buy it. I’m not sure why I resisted it so. But I went home and opened my mail. There was a package from the leader of my Compassionate Friends group. When I opened it, there was a copy of the book. I knew I had to read it immediately.
Like the angel in The Christmas Box, I believe my Julie also plays a music box for me. It is one that must be hand wound in order to play—it can’t just get jarred into playing—yet in the middle of the night, just as in The Christmas Box, it often plays.
Sincerely,
Mary H. Harrington
