Divine Appointment on Christmas Eve

Written on December 22, 2009 In reflection of a Christmas sometime between 1990 and 1993

By Mary Campbell

My stride was purposeful and swift. Get in and get out. I don’t like to shop. I particularly don’t like to shop at the malls. AND I especially don’t like to shop at the malls during the Christmas holidays. For some reason I had it that I needed one more something that I MUST have before Christmas. It was Christmas Eve. The mall was packed. One thing I HAD to have.

Then I heard this blood curdling scream. I was getting closer to the scream as I approached the escalator of the largest store in the mall. When I saw her I knew immediately the circumstance that had me be in this place at this time. Susan was at the bottom of the UP escalator and what I found out later was a much older brother was on the escalator halfway up. The escalator was packed full of people and the brother could not get down to her and obviously did not know why his sister was in a panic and screaming.

Although my teaching certificate was in secondary mathematics, the special education teachers would call me to substitute in their classes because I got along so well with that population of children. In the fall of the year I had gone with a group of these students to a shopping mall. The purpose was for them to have a change of…