It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. It’s chilly. The department store parking lot is filled with cars.
A woman rings a bell, standing beside a green bucket. She’s raising money for kids with cancer. She wears a Santa hat and sings “Joy to the World.”
I put a few bucks in the bucket. It’s not much, but every bit counts. Ringing a bell for donations is rough work.
Once, I rang a bell outside a supermarket. I was a pathetic, skinny, nineteen-year-old Southern Baptist wearing a stocking hat.
I stood beside a bucket from morning until late afternoon. Hardly anyone noticed me. A few smiled, some tossed in pennies, but most pretended I didn’t exist.
My first day ringing the bell, I raised seven dollars for a program at our church that bought gifts for children in the cancer ward. Seven lousy bucks.
That night, Brother James, looked at my stack of quarters and said, “Don’t feel too bad about it, son, lotta people are busy.
They ain’t bad people, just busy.”
But I did feel bad about it. I had met some of the pediatric cancer patients. They were normal, happy, fun-loving kids with hairless heads and big hearts. For some of them, it would be their last Christmas. I wanted to know that these children would get a few gifts from a fat man in a red suit.
I decided not to give up. One night, I went to my uncle for advice.
He listened to my problem without responding. And after I vented my frustration, he smiled, patted my shoulder, and said, “Reach into my cooler and get me another beer.”
He popped the tab. “I think the key here, Sean, is to reee-lax. You’ve done all you can do, that’s all that counts. You want a beer?”
“But,” I explained to my uncle. “I’m only nineteen…