Tragedy on Christmas Eve Day

It was Christmas Eve yesterday, and I was busy writing when I heard a frantic knock at my door. I looked out the window and saw my neighbor, Rachael. She was hysterical and incoherent, but I figured out a strange man had just appeared in her front room, sat in her easy chair and refused to leave. Rachael lives alone and she’s in her late seventies, but she was demanding that this man leave immediately. He appeared to be drunk, so she left her house and came running to mine, phone in hand.

She had called 911, and was trembling so bad I thought surely she would fall. I put my arms around her and asked her, in a calm voice, if her grandchildren were in the house. No. OK, was the strange man still in there? Yes. OK, we would wait for the police to arrive, and we would wait on my porch. All of this time, I was rubbing her back, trying to calm her down.

About six minutes later, out came the man. It was clear to me he was not drunk, but was mentally in trouble. He shuffled past my house, never looking at us, and kept shuffling to the next house, then the next. He sat down on the ground and looked back to see if we were watching him. Boy, were we ever watching him!

Eventually, he struggled to get up, opened the mailbox, saw there was nothing in it, then started up the sidewalk to enter the house. I knew that was the house where a woman had died on Thanksgiving, and I feared for the surviving aged husband who lived inside. I ran to the house next door, banged on the door, and asked Alan to help us. I explained what was going on, and he said, “April the deranged man is Bub. He lives there. His wife died on Thanksgiving.” I argued with him because this man did not look like the Bub I had seen, but he asserted it was, indeed, the same man.

For the next two hours, we were surrounded by twelve policemen in six cars, lots of commotion, then the Crisis Team, and eventually the Paramedic Van. The police had asked Alan if Bub had any family, and Alan had told them of a niece who “lived in L.A. and visited about three times a year.” So, there was no one – no family member, no friend available to help Bub. They drove poor Bub off to a mental hospital and left his two little dogs behind in an empty house.

Later that day, we learned Bub’s niece lived in the same gated community! She was a five-minute walk away from his house, but didn’t care enough to know what was happening to this poor man who couldn’t deal with the loss of his 50-year partner in life! My heart screamed as tears flooded down my face. How could a family member be so insensitive to this lost man? It was an “Eleanor Rigby Christmas” all over again!

This morning, I’m having my Bible Study in I Timothy 5, and I get to verse 8:

But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

I thought of Mama, the woman who had abused me so severely in my childhood. She was ebullient, funny, talented and very moody. Years later, she was widowed and wasn’t making it financially. I had gone through all the therapy, counseling, and struggling with God, and had come to a place of total forgiveness, acceptance, and an understanding of her problems that led to her moodiness.
I asked God what He would have me do about Mama’s financial condition and I felt God was showing me, through His Word, that it was my responsibility to support her, even if it meant tithing to her, as unto The Lord. Some of the people in my life thought I was crazy, but I felt I had heard from God. So, five years later, when she was killed coming out of church, I had no regrets over how I had treated her. I had total peace because I had followed the leading of The Holy Spirit.

Today my heart aches for the niece and for Bub. I tremble when I think of what’s in store for the niece, and I want to cry for this poor abandoned man. Oh, Lord, it’s such a broken world I live in. There’s so much pain all around me, and I’m but one person. But I promise You I will do what I can whenever You present a need to me. Today I’m grateful I know Your Son as we celebrate Him coming down to earth to meet our needs.

(c) 2007 April Lorier, Christmas Day