A Story of Christmas.

By Al

The teacher had retired and it was a year after. It was time to throw out some of the accumulated trash from thirty years of teaching the eight grade. He had gone through a box and a half when he came across a pile of pages written by a class of his students. He held them in his hands and remembered that this was an assignment he had given to the last period class just before letting them out for the Christmas vacation.

The topic was, "What does Christmas mean to me" and it was just a time killer. He knew that in thirty minutes the vice principal would be dismissing classes early. Sure enough the class was out in thirty and the teacher packaged the material. For some reason he misplaced it over the holidays and now for the first time in four years it was back in his hands. For nostalgic reasons he started to read over the material. This is the sixth paper.

"I am thankful for this Christmas my mother will not be abused by my father. She is now three years abuse free. Three years ago I could not write this for my dad used every excuse and every holiday to beat my mom up. He was especially angry the Christmas three years ago because someone had broken into our house and stole some valuables. He even went out and bought a gun which he keep in the master closet.

Mom struggled that year for money was tight. She had a really small tree and only a few gifts graced the bottom of the tree. That Christmas night dad came in slightly drunk and very angry. He threw the tree across the room and was braking up the boxes when Mom came into the living room and tried to stop him.

He rewarded her with a blow to the face and she went sprawling into a table. I lost control. I thought of attacking him but he was to big. I went to the closet, got the gun, made sure the safety was off and returned to the living room. Dad was about to kick my mother in the ribs. The gun went off. ?.

The police excused me, the court put me on probation and my mind tries to say it was something that had to be done. Dad lays in the hospital on a life machine as far as I know, I am not allowed to go there. Mom has remarried. The new guy is a jerk but at least he has not hit her. Like I said we got a lot to look forward to." Signed Anonymous.

The teacher put the letters down. He did not feet like reading anymore of them for now. He put them back into the box and put the box back. "Let sleeping dogs lie," he thought and went back into the house.

Three years later after the teacher and his wife had passed, his son took all the papers in the garage and threw them out. That?s just the way the dogs lie, no rhyme no reason.