One of my favorite Christmas stories is An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco. I cannot finish that book without weeping.
An Orange for Frankie is the true story of Patricia Polacco’s great-uncle, Frankie. It’s set in the mid-west around 1920 when Frankie is just 10 years old. Times are hard and life is very uncertain. Frankie is looking forward to Christmas and especially to the oranges that his father will bring home for Christmas. Each child is given just one orange, an exotic and expensive treat in those days. The cradle for this story is Frankie’s family. He has a big, loud, loving family around him in which each and every member is deeply valued and loved. The story is exquisitely layered with details as Frankie faces many obstacles to enjoying his Christmas, a big one being the loss of his precious orange after disobeying his parents’ orders to “not touch.”
Several years ago, the fourth grade teacher with whom I worked asked me to read this story aloud to our students. I happily agree but was completely unprepared for how choked up I got as I neared the end of the story. What is it about reading sad stories aloud that magnifies the grief of the words? I don’t know, but sad words just hanging in the air seem so much sadder.
Anyway, elementary-aged kids can become very uncomfortable when they see adults cry, especially when the adult is on staff at their school. Our students tend to see us as rather one-dimensional and can barely handle the shock of running into us at the grocery store, let alone seeing us cry. It’s not uncommon for kids to giggle or make faces or get silly when we cry because they just don’t know how else to handle our occasional displays of open emotion.
So, I finished the story and stopped to collect myself and some of the kids are looking around and giggling a bit… and I understand and it’s okay. But then I read the epilogue aloud and, seriously, the kids’ faces went blank and the room grew as quiet as empty.
“That was Frankie’s last Christmas.”
I could barely talk after that, and tears were rolling down my cheeks. No one spoke, or giggled, or even looked around. The boys and girls were inwardly grappling with what that sentence really meant. The wintery, gray light from our large windows seemed to add to the quiet weight and uncertainty in the room.
Finally, one kid murmured, “Why was it his last Christmas?”
“Anyone think they might know?” I asked the class.
They all hesitated and then some wondered if, for some reason, the family became too poor to celebrate Christmas again.
I shook my head.
“Did he die?” whispered one girl.
“Well, yes,” I said. “This would be around the time of the influenza epidemic and he probably died of the flu. The story doesn’t say but I’m guessing that’s what happened.”
The kids just could not accept this ending. They completely rejected the idea that a child might have a “last Christmas.”
More silence…more doubt…more struggling. Then, a boy named Jack offered a hopeful alternative, spoken in a surreal, heartbreaking, yet hilariously monotone voice:
“Maybe he turned Jewish.”
The idea of Frankie, a mid-western, red-headed, freckle-faced 10 year-old, informing his Lutheran parents in 1918 that he was converting to Judaism was so completely absurd yet oddly logical. I hopped off the stool, handed the book to the teacher and quickly left the room for a laugh that bordered on hysterics. It still ranks as one of the top five funniest comments I’ve heard a student make.
And yet, as funny as that moment was, I’ll never forget how completely unacceptable it was to those fourth-graders kids to learn that some small children do indeed have a Last Christmas. They were learning that we do indeed live in a fallen world where some children have never known a happy Christmas.
Kenneth White is safe in the arms of Jesus.
Republic of Kathleen 