The Christmas Gorilla
A SERMON GIVEN BY REV LINDA HART AT RICHMOND & PUTNEY UNITARIAN CHURCH
The Christmas gorilla comes out every Christmas and sits on the rocker along with a plush snowman and a small pillow that says, ‘Meet me under the mistletoe’. It is over 20 years old now and the white of its fur has gone dingy with the years, the cheap polyester scarf is pilling and the fringe on the end is tattered but still it comes out.
It was Gabriel who gave it to me and the crooked smile on the gorilla’s face makes me think of him still. A lovely sweet 3 year old, his mother brought him to my child care centre because the doctors who were helping to heal him recognised that he needed to socialise with children his own age and his mother protected him too much. Her love was smothering him and he needed some space in which to run free.
An accident with a drunk driver was what had done it to him. All the family had been injured, but little Gabriel, only 2 ½ then, had suffered a head injury and was in a coma for some months and now was in rehabilitation. The doctor’s report said that he had partial hemi-paresis but that the prospect for getting better was good. Except that he needed some space and we meant to give it to him.
He came three mornings a week. His long thick hair was ever in his eyes, because at his bedside when he lay unconscious and his survival was in question, oddly enough, his mother in prayer had promised the Virgin Mother that she would not cut his hair for a year if he survived. So it grew out, long and thick, covering up the place where they had cut open his skull to relieve the pressure on his brain. We knew that there was a soft place on his head and that we needed to take care that he didn’t bump there. One day, when he was calm, I felt around on his head and found the hole, the size of a small cookie and nearly as round.
It was early autumn when he began to attend the centre. Manju and Shirley were his main teachers, though I was in the classroom as well. He had no attention span, he would dart from one activity to the next, look at a book and fling it down, grab a few blocks and abandon them as another toy caught his eye and off he would go again. One of us was always with him, trying to get him to stay for a moment more with a puzzle or with the Lego blocks. Nothing worked to occupy him.
No matter the weather, we spent a good amount of time outdoors each day. The children would all get their coats and hats and scarves and bring them to the rug and put them on. Gabriel would dash about the classroom. I or one of the other teachers would grab his coat and lay it on the ground on its back, armholes open on the top. This was an easy way for children to put on their coats without assistance. Hands in the arms, they would simply bring the coat over their heads and it would be on. ‘Come put your coat on, Gabe,’ we would call to him, and eventually one of us would go over and take him by the hand walk him over to the coat, thrust his hands into the sleeves and lift his arms up and over his head so he could get ready to go out, hoping that one day he would do it on his own.
Outside, he loved to run. Only it was a lopsided sort of run. Up on the toes of his right foot, he would gallump along, always tottering on the brink of falling. The urge to run after him, arms stretched out in a protective bubble around him, struck all of us at one time or another but we would restrain ourselves, knowing that he needed to run, knowing that he didn’t get to move like this at home.
After a snack and an art project and some books – not that he could sit for any of these – I would walk him up to where he caught the bus home. Again, as he darted around the classroom, I would pick up his coat and lay it out for him. ‘Put your coat on, Gabe,’ I would intone, more a chant or a ritual than an actual request for him to do something. It was just how it worked. A few minutes later I would take him by the hand and put his coat on him and we would walk through the halls of the school.
Week after week it was like this. His painting was the same sort of blur that he was – a quick swipe of red or blue or green across the paper and he would be on the move again, looking for something else to occupy his time. His tottering across the playground continued but he seemed somehow more sure on his feet, not as wobbly as he had been on those first few days. By the end of October, probably two months along, he began to slow down and to focus on a few tasks. He made a paper bag for Halloween goodies. The craft paper shapes were randomly slapped on the bag with too much glue but it was something he had done mostly by himself. A real victory. The puzzles that had only landed on the floor as he looked at and discarded them on his way past the puzzle rack, now were taken to a table and dumped out. Putting the pieces back wasn’t really his concern, but sometimes he could manage one or two back into place.
A Monday morning as we neared Christmas, Manju, one of the teachers, didn’t arrive at 10.30 to start her work day. The time had come and gone and I worried a bit because she was never late. Distracted by the activities of the day, I went on with the plan, her absence an irritant in the background. It was after 11.30 when the phone rang out in the hall. On the other end was my boss saying that Manju’s husband had called in to the main office. Over the weekend there had been an accident. While driving to the airport to drop off a family friend who had been visiting, a car, driven by a man with a blood alcohol level easily twice the legal limit, crossed the median strip and slammed into their car. Everyone had bumps and bruises, and a couple had broken bones. But Manju had been killed instantly. She would never be coming back to work.
In a fog, I went back into the classroom. Shirley immediately saw the stricken look on my face and I whispered to her what had happened, my mind racing to sort out how to tell these fifteen children that their teacher, beloved by all of them, would never be back.
Noting the time, I went and got Gabriel’s coat. Tossing it down on the floor, I began the ritual chant, ‘Gabe, come put your coat on.’ Looking around at the children over on the rug quietly reading books, my heart felt broken. One of their voices lifted into the room.
‘Miss Linda, look at Gabriel!’
His hands had slid into his sleeves, his arms were over his head as he shimmied into his puffy winter coat. A look of triumph was on his face as he tottered over to me to have me zip him up.
The other children all came to their feet and clapped for Gabriel, now steadier, now more attentive, now able to take care of himself better. We all cheered and gave him hugs and I walked with him up to the bus feeling like some small measure of balance had been restored to the world. No life is a payment for another, nothing could take away the grief of Manju’s death, but Gabe was more and more restored. Somehow life did carry on, did lift up through the sadness and loss. I received a shining gift on that day.
At Christmas, his mother brought me the Christmas gorilla, its round face not unlike Gabriel’s. I have kept it as an ongoing reminder so that each year at Christmas he would come back to me again, the picture of that tottering child, the picture of his arms upraised in victory. I have kept it to remind me of the possibility of birth that comes all the time for us, even in the face of death.