That Boy Child of Maggie

That Boy Child of Maggie: A Christmas Story

December 24, 2018

The wind blew a cold rain that sent a chill through our bones. Helicopters drew lazy circles above us, their search lights cutting through the damp night air. It was going to be a hard night to get any sleep despite our exhaustion.

We’d been walking north, with a small caravan of refugees for weeks. Threats of violence, and then rounds of violent weather had finally driven us from what had passed for home these last few years.

My baby, born on that strange night almost seven years earlier, was now a bright little boy. A bright, hungry, tired little boy who had walked hundreds of miles with us.

Well, that was only in recent weeks. He’d travelled hundreds of other miles with us already, before he could even walk. In those first odd days after his birth, when total strangers had come to see us, brought us gifts, and offered help, some of them had also offered us words of warning. We’d been told that going home wasn’t going to be safe.

Driven by a governmental decree, we’d spent a couple of days on the road. I was like ten months pregnant. Seriously. I was huge.

Jo, my partner in all of this, tried to make me comfortable, but there really wasn’t much they could do to help. I might have been a little grumpy, especially when our reservations for a room fell through at the last minute.

We thought we had things arranged, but somehow the hotel lost our information. I may have yelled at the clerk. I may have yelled at Jo. I’m pretty sure I yelled at the phone. “Damn app. Since when doesn’t a “reservations” app make actual reservations?!?”

Alas, yelling didn’t get us a room. They were booked solid, and so was every other place in the capital city. That’s what happens when the government makes every body show up in the same place at the same time. Who thought that was a good idea anyway?

Well, they didn’t ask us for advice. We are not part of the politically connected crowd, to be sure.

We wound up with a small group of similarly stranded travelers who found shelter in an abandoned warehouse, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s when little Josh decided to make his grand appearance. Born in a warehouse with a delightfully kind butch motorcycle mechanic for a midwife, an HVAC guy looking for some clean sheets or towels, and a clearly-out-of-his-depth software engineer offering as much encouragement as he could muster while also trying to get an actual doctor.

We never did get trained medical help. Turns out my body knew what to do, and, with Jo’s hand-holding and soft words, and the motorcycle midwife’s kindness, we got the baby born.

That’s when the night actually got strange. Some street people came knocking around the warehouse. Jo told me later they thought at first the street people were looking for a place to get inside for the night, but when Jo pulled back the big sliding door, one of the ragtag band stepped up and said, “we heard there was a baby born here tonight.”

Jo said, “how’d you hear that? The baby was only born about an hour ago.”

They looked over at me and said, “hey, Maggie, they’re some people here who want to see the baby; you up for a quick visit?”

“Who the heck even knows we’re here? How’d they find us?”

One of the men, who had followed Jo over to where I was resting, said, “you wouldn’t believe me if we told you, and, besides, we do drink a little, so, who knows really … but we heard some singing and somebody told us there was a baby born down in the empty warehouse so we brought you some diapers and a blanket.”

Then one of the men in the back said, under his breath, “uh, we heard the kids was gonna save the world, so we brought him a stuffed camel. If he’s gonna go far in this world he’ll need a ride.”

“Uh, thanks,” Jo told them as they shuffled off into the darkness.

Josh still has that stuffed animal. He’s curled up with it now, trying to sleep. Jo always jokes about it. “Where they found that in the middle of the night … probably best not to know, and now our kid has an ill-gotten camel for when he saves the world.” We still laugh at that.

But every time we laugh at the memory, I also remember the day I found out I was going to be a mom. I still hum the song I sung that day. My soul cried out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great; my spirit sings of the wondrous things God brings to the ones who wait. My heart still sings of the day God brings, and the fire of God’s justice burns … wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn.

Before we got out of that warehouse the week Josh was born we had a small parade of visitors, and the last ones, who brought us gifts I carry in my heart even now, also told us they’d heard terrible rumors about unrest and violence back where we came from. One of them told us, “if I were you, I’d go home by another way.”

Before we left, Jo had checked the news, and it was horrible. We couldn’t go home at all, so we crossed the border then and have been living as strangers in a strange land for Josh’s whole brief life.

And now we are on the run again. It’s the same story. Powerful men creating violence that threatens the lives of folks like us. On top of that, the subsistence farming we’d relied on in the town where we settled had collapsed. Two solid years of terrible weather – too much rain when it didn’t help and too little when we needed it – and the crops just failed.

People were bailing. Violence makes you scared. Hunger makes you desperate.

So here we are, close to another border. The folks on the other side don’t want us; their leaders keep telling them to be afraid of us. “Refugees are dirty, and violent, and they want your jobs,” is what they say.

But here we are. Just our little family, and it’s almost Josh’s birthday again. He’ll be seven tomorrow, and we don’t have a single present for him. He hasn’t said a thing about it. The place we’ve been living we can’t go back to. I look out from our makeshift tent. Across the valley there’s a wall, and guards on the other side of it, and the helicopters circling, sometimes a whiff of teargas on the breeze.

I’m not even sure what’s on the other side for us, but it’s better than what’s here.

I worry about Josh all the time now. He’s so young, but he’s a special kid. I know every mom thinks that about her kids, but Josh is wise beyond his years and he’s so kind that I’m afraid the world will hurt him. I worry about Jo, too. They just don’t really seem to fit most folks’ idea of who should be a father. But I love them so.

Last night little Josh cried himself to sleep, but before he did he told us about a dream he’d had.

“I dreamed we were in this beautiful big room. It had a roof but no walls, and it was overflowing with people – all kinds of people. Some looked like us, and some looked like they came from across the world. Most of ‘em looked poor, like we do, but some didn’t. Anyway, there was a great huge table right in the middle of the room, with food for everybody; somebody brought some fish and somebody else brought some rice, and I was standing at the table, passing bread around so everybody could eat. You two were there with me, and for some weird reason you were telling the story of the night I was born. You were telling about the strangers who visited, and the presents they brought, and the camel. Maybe someday we’ll find a place like that. Maybe someday the walls will all come down. Maybe someday we’ll all have enough to eat. Maybe someday we’ll find a place where we’re really welcome.”

“Maybe someday, Josh. Maybe someday. Go to sleep now, tomorrow’s going to be a big day. I feel it in my bones. It’s gonna be your birthday, Josh. Get some rest. It’s finally quiet out. It’s a silent night, after all.”