The Christmas Sweater

by Glenn Beck

  I looked into the kitchen. Grandma’s back was to us as she worked over the sink. For an instant I felt guilty for adding to her burden. It passed quickly.

  “Just stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours,” I snorted.

  “That’s not going to work, Eddie. I’m going to love you no matter how much you fight me. I wish it wasn’t that way. I’d much rather laugh and go get ice cream at the hardware store again. I want Grandma to ask us where we’ve been for the last three hours. I want to show you the rest of the Christmas hiding spots I’ve found over the years, but most of all, I just want my best friend back again.”

  I couldn’t believe it—another lecture. And he wasn’t done. “If you want to keep going down this self-pity path, that’s your choice, but it’s the wrong one. Either way, I’m not moving on. I’ll always be here with open arms, ready to show you how good life can be if you just let someone else into it. But until then I’ll be watching you like a hawk. You don’t fool me, Eddie. I understand you better than you understand yourself.”

  “Watch me all you want. I don’t care. Maybe you’ll learn something. Besides, there’s only one person around here who even comes close to understanding me—and it isn’t you.”

  Grandpa looked confused for a second, then glanced into the kitchen.

  “It’s not Grandma,” I answered with more contempt than I felt. “I’m talking about Russell!”

  “Who?”

  “Russell. The man who lives next door.”

  “Eddie, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you can stop with this Russell nonsense. I went over there with some of the neighbors a few times and we didn’t see anyone, nor any sign that the Johnsons ever sold the place.”

  “Well then you obviously don’t all know each other as well as you thought. Russell lives there, and he gets it. He knows who I am.”

  Grandpa glared at me. “I don’t even know who you are anymore, Eddie. I don’t know if you really saw someone or if you’re making all of this up as part of some sort of escape plot you’ve hatched. If that’s the case, it’s not going to work. Either way, just stay away from the Johnson farm. You have no business going over there without me.”

  “Fine,” I replied, though I knew it was anything but. In that instant I realized how far my relationship with my grandfather had deteriorated. He couldn’t even trust his own grandson anymore.

  In what had become my normal routine, I did exactly the opposite of what my grandfather told me to.

  I walked to the Johnsons’ farm, through the scrub and past the corral. The mare was outside. She watched me go by and greeted me with a snort and a flick of her tail. The same horse that had been so ornery before was now so gentle. It was like a completely different horse.

  The bottom step leading to the porch was gone, and I had to half jump to reach the next step. Once on the porch, I stopped and listened to the tarnished copper wind chime hanging near the door. A gentle breeze forced it to surrender a few clicks and a couple of unimpressive tones. I wondered if I shouldn’t just turn around and go home.

  What home?

  The torn screen door opened with a squeak as the spring stretched out for the millionth time. I hesitated, then quietly knocked on the door. Small chips of ancient paint came away with my knuckles. I reached out to try again, thinking that there was no way anyone could have heard my knock. Then a gentle voice came from behind me.

  “Hello, Eddie.”

  I should have been startled, but I wasn’t. “Hi, Russell.”

  “I was just going to take a break. Come and sit with me a while.”

  He led me through tall dead grass to a big tree with a park bench under it—a real park bench. It still had a faded advertisement for the Yellow Pages.

  “Auction,” he said simply, answering my question before I asked it. “This is where I come to think after more than just my fingers have done the walking.” He smiled. “Everyone needs a place where they can go to just ponder for a while. Silence is important; it’s the only time you can hear the whispering of truth.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I didn’t say anything.

  Russell let out a deep breath. “It’s funny,” he continued, his voice barely audible, “how many people just look at the surface and never ponder the deeper meaning of things. I guess maybe it’s easier that way, because when you skim the surface you blame your problems on the first person you find—and that’s never yourself.” He paused as if to underscore what he’d just said. “Maybe that’s why people aren’t comfortable with silence. Silence makes you think, and thinking makes you realize that not all problems are caused by someone else.”

  Russell had his eyes closed. I was sure he would sit there in silence for a month if I waited for him to speak again. The silence was awkward and uncomfortable. “Aren’t you afraid your horse will run away?” I asked. “Your broken fence sure isn’t going to keep her here.”

  Russell kept his eyes closed as he considered my question. “If you treat an animal right, they don’t run away. They’re not like us. They run away from people they don’t trust; most times we run away from ourselves.”

  More silence.

  “I suppose I’m just about done with this old girl,” Russell continued. “I think she’s pretty much remembered who she is. And she is happy. There’s not much more for me to do. I’ll probably give her a few more days, and then I’ll be hitting the road again.”

  Figures, I thought to myself. Everyone else I’ve ever been close to has left. Why wouldn’t Russell?

  He lifted his head and looked deep into my eyes. It felt like he was looking through me. “What can I do for you, Eddie?”

  “Nothing. I just came over to say hello.” Lying was becoming second nature to me.

  Russell turned his head and picked up a small stick from between his feet. “You know, Eddie, sometimes we get so entangled in life that we miss the obvious. We just get so caught up in our own problems that most of the time we fail to see what’s—”

  I finished his sentence almost by rote. “Right under our nose?”

  “Yes, we fail to see the things that are closest to us. It’s like the old expression ‘You can’t see the forest for the trees.’ You’re in the forest right now, Eddie, but you’re too close to the trees to realize it. Maybe you need to step back and see the bigger picture.”

  I nodded my head in agreement: I knew Russell would understand. He already seemed to know exactly what I planned on doing—seeing the whole picture by getting as far away from this godforsaken street as possible.

  Russell continued, “See, we’re all made up of two parts. There’s a part that thinks and there’s a part that feels. Usually, the two parts work together and everything is fine, but sometimes life hits us hard and one part overtakes the other. For example, you miss your dad terribly, right, Eddie?”

  I wondered how he knew about my dad, but at that point I was more curious about where this was heading. “Sure,” I answered cautiously.

  “Well, you think about him plenty, but how often do you remember the feelings you had when he was around? When you think about him now, you picture him in a hospital bed or in a casket at his funeral. You’ve replaced dreams with nightmares.”

  It was hard to argue with that. I looked at the horse.

  “You’ve done the same thing with your mother. You’ve replaced good memories of pancakes and laughter with bad memories of an argument and a car wreck. You have to stop thinking so much and instead start feeling again, even when,” he paused, then said, “no, especially when it hurts.”

  A vision of Mom lying in her casket involuntarily popped into my head, as it had done so many times before. But now, for the first time since her death, I was able to force it out and replace it with how I felt. I felt happiness and warmth, joy and sorrow—but, most of all, I felt a longing to see her again. For the first time, I felt how much I missed her.

  “Eddie, your parents did a good job trying to teach you how to live y
our life. They showed you that no matter what happened, all would be well in the end. But look at what you’ve done with those lessons; you’ve crumpled them up into a ball and tossed them onto the floor.”

  I looked away. I knew he was right.

  “You’re not living in the present, Eddie—you’re living in the past. Life is here to be shaped and molded into what you want it to be, but you’ve done exactly the opposite; you’ve let life shape and mold you. You don’t know who you really are because, right now, you’re no one. You’re empty inside.”

  What? I was fuming. How could Russell say that? I knew exactly who I was. I was about to remind him of that, but Russell wasn’t interested in my feedback. He continued, “The two most powerful words in any language are ‘I am.’ Those two words contain all the creative power of the heavens themselves. It was God’s answer from the Burning Bush to Moses’s question ‘Who shall I say sent me?’—‘I am that I am.’ It is the name of God.”

  “I don’t believe in God.”

  Russell considered me for a second. “He’s sorry to hear that. Maybe it’s because you’ve invoked his name to create something that you’re not—a reality that exists only because you have made it so.”

  I didn’t even know what he was talking about. He must’ve seen the confusion in my face.

  “Eddie, when was the last time you honestly thought, ‘I am happy; I am strong; I am a good person; I am worthy’?” His voice was powerful, commanding.

  My silence said more than I ever could.

  “You’ve spent far too much of your time turning yourself into something you are not: a victim. No one can make you into a victim; only you can do that…and you have. But there’s another choice you can make as well—you can choose to be a survivor.”

  A flood of memories came rushing back to me.

  Dad trying to teach me how to fly a kite in the street outside our house. Every time he’d get it going, another car would come around the corner and the kite would nosedive into the asphalt.

  I tried to push it away.

  Dad and I playing football in the backyard. He could throw the ball so far that I’d have to run to the neighbor’s yard to catch it.

  “Feel, Eddie, feel.”

  Dad and I walking down the middle of the street in the snow, the streetlights making his face glow.

  Suddenly I felt a pit in my stomach.

  “Don’t think yet, son, feel.”

  Dad’s face was glowing again, but now it was under the bright white lights of his hospital room. He looked tired and frail. A flash of darkness. I was at his funeral. By His counsels guide, uphold you; With His sheep securely fold you; God be with you ’til we meet again.

  As hard as I tried, I couldn’t feel. I was inundated with thoughts. Wave after wave, memory after memory.

  I couldn’t fight it anymore—it all seemed so overwhelming. I am not.

  I let go. Russell had his back to me. The horse was eating gently from his hand. “You have such a bright future,” he said. “You just have to believe in it.”

  “I think it’s time for me to go home.”

  Russell never turned around. “Oh, that it is, Eddie. That it is.”

  This time, I didn’t say anything to Grandpa about Russell. It didn’t matter. We stopped talking any more than we absolutely had to. He’d decided that everything I did was selfish and manipulative, and his growing distrust gave me the excuse I needed to be the bitter and disrespectful thirteen-year-old that I was beginning to believe I really was.

  Rather than faking a normal, happy relationship, we set in motion a nasty cycle that was sucking every ounce of goodness right out of our home.

  Grandma deserved better.

  It’s not that Grandpa was mean to me; he just quit trying to be nice. Maybe he was just waiting for me to grow up, or maybe he’d just had enough of it all—but, whatever the reason, Grandpa answered my constant abuse with indifference. Harsh words and restricted privileges were reserved for when I broke rules or crossed the line by taking my anger out on my grandmother.

  Unable to get sympathy at home, I looked for it at the Ashtons’ instead. “I can’t stay there anymore, Taylor,” I said over lunch at school one day.

  “Where will you go?” he asked, just as I had hoped.

  “If I could just get a break for a while, maybe things would settle down.”

  “Let’s talk to my folks,” he offered.

  Finally.

  Thirteen

  School let out ten days before the holiday because Christmas fell on a Sunday. Grandpa had gone on his annual three-day hunting trip a little later than normal, which gave me the perfect opportunity to finally put my plan into motion.

  “Grandma, would you mind if I stayed over at Taylor’s house for a few nights? His parents already said it was okay.” Grandpa never would’ve allowed this, but Grandma was a softie. She was still under the mistaken impression that I could be “saved,” and I used that against her.

  To my surprise, she didn’t answer right away. I started to worry that I might have miscalculated.

  “Grandpa wouldn’t approve, but I trust you, Eddie.” She looked deep into my eyes as she said, “I know your heart. I suppose it would be okay if it’s just a few nights.” Whew. I quietly breathed a big sigh of relief.

  I ran up to my bedroom, opened my window, and heaved the duffel bag I’d stolen from the barn up onto the windowsill. It held nearly everything I owned, along with a few things I didn’t, crammed into every pocket and corner. I pushed it over the edge, hoping that it wouldn’t make much noise when it hit the ground.

  “Good-bye, dear,” Grandma said as the Ashtons pulled up in their Continental. I was surprised that no one asked why I didn’t just walk, like I had a hundred times before. While Grandma made small talk with Mrs. Ashton, Taylor opened the passenger door and helped me load in the duffel bag.

  I felt like I’d finally escaped.

  Mr. Ashton was away on another short business trip, so Taylor and I turned our attention to treating his mother like royalty. We made her breakfast, we took out the garbage, we even vacuumed the rugs and did the dishes without being asked.

  All the while we watched her like a hawk, waiting until she was in the perfect mood. Not surprisingly, it came two days later at about four o’clock in the afternoon. Mrs. Ashton was watching television, a smile on her face and a crystal tumbler in her hand, when we made our approach.

  “Mom,” Taylor began, “Eddie and I want to talk to you about something.”

  “Of course,” she replied, never taking her eyes off the television. “What is it?”

  Taylor looked at me; I had the stage now. I couldn’t even count how many times I had rehearsed what I was about to say. I steadied my voice. “Janice,” I began, “my grandparents are miserable, and so am I.”

  She stopped watching the television and turned to face me. I had her attention now. “They’re just too old to really understand me,” I continued. “Plus, I feel bad because Grandma just wants peace and quiet, and I’m nothing but a burden to them.”

  “Oh, Eddie, I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “It is, Janice, believe me. I’ve tried everything, but we just don’t see eye to eye anymore. I think all three of us would be much happier if I could just come and live with you guys for a while. My grandparents would be fine with it. In fact, they might not admit it, but I think secretly they’re really hoping that I would ask you.” It wasn’t hard to sell any of this because I truly believed it. I had closed down my emotional attachments for so long that I honestly thought my grandparents would be thrilled if I left. They could get on with their lives and I could get on with mine. Besides, I knew what I wanted to do and where I was going—and it didn’t include being stuck on a farm.

  Mrs. Ashton’s eyes narrowed. “Well, Eddie, if your grandparents are really okay with it, then so am I. But I’ll have to talk about it with Stan when he gets home tomorrow.”

  I nodded my head and looked over at T
aylor. It took every ounce of self-control I had left not to smile.

  The next day marked the third day since I’d left, and I knew that my grandfather would soon be back from his trip. When he found out that I’d been gone for so long, he’d call the Ashtons, or worse, come right to their house.

  Mr. Ashton had gotten home earlier that morning, and now Taylor and I were standing in front of his parents in the living room. “Eddie,” Mrs. Ashton said softly, “we understand. We’re more than happy to have you here, but we’re going to have to make some arrangements. You and Taylor go find something to do while Stan and I try to figure something out.”

  “Are you ready to have a new brother?” I said smugly to Taylor after his parents left the room.

  For longer than I could remember I had been looking forward to this moment as the time I would finally be happy. So why did I feel like I had when I’d opened the sweater on Christmas morning?

  We’re all made up of two parts. There’s a part that thinks and then there’s a part that feels.

  That was the problem. I felt great, but the thinking part of me knew that I wasn’t going to get what I expected—I was going to get what I deserved.

  After lunch, Mr. Ashton told us to get ready to go for a drive. “I need to go to the store for your mom, Taylor. Why don’t you and Eddie come along? We’ll stop for a treat.”

  We got into the Lincoln, pulled out onto the road, and drove past Russell’s farm. As usual, it looked abandoned. It wasn’t long before my grandparents’ house came into view. As we approached, I slouched down in my seat and hoped they weren’t looking out the window. I had a new life now.

  “What are you doing?!” I yelled as Mr. Ashton turned into the driveway by my grandfather’s old plow and pulled up to the house. My grandmother’s silhouette appeared and became sharper as we approached.