christmas is for children

From my friend, Esther Brown, who advocates for, and accompanies, the men on Alabama's Death Row:

CHRISTMAS  IS  FOR  CHILDREN

Those among us who feel too sophisticated to be childlike during this season often say that Christmas is for children. For the sake of argument let me appear to agree with them.

If Christmas really is for children then I hope you will open your heart to the children who fell through the cracks, the children we did not care about, the children we forgot. So let’s pretend that I am the Ghost of Christmas Past who you may remember from Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol. No, I do not say that you are Scrooge who felt that Christmas was bah humbug, but perhaps in coming with me, you will learn some things you had not known. So take my hand and I will introduce you to some children very dear to me. Names, race and place of birth are not important in order for you to see these little ones. Important is what happened to them and their childhood, and the question we must ask ourselves about our absence.

I hear a knock on the door! And who do we have here? A sweet, innocent, little boy, but then all children are that, don’t you agree? But that is not all we see. We see a child who is told that he was not wanted, a child who was sexually and physically severely abused by those who should protect him. Stop, you say. And I understand because this is too hard to see. And here comes another one who does have a mother he loves dearly. The father, well…With our present day eyes we see that his mother will die when he is only twelve and that he will then be on his own. Can you imagine? On your own at age twelve? And I am not telling you everything that happened to him because I know you would not be able to bear it. So, how about this little one? Can you bear to look at the little boy raised in a drug house and turned on to hard drugs at an early age, at the little boy whose parents quarreled violently and physically, at the one living on the streets of L.A by age twelve? Can you bear to look without it breaking your heart? May I tell you about the others as well? After all, I have only just begun.

Enough, you say, take me to the present! As the Ghost of Christmas Present I show you that some of those little boys have been killed by the State of Alabama and that the others are at Holman Prison on death row, doing their best to give back in a positive way what they were never given.

And then there is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. If I am that ghost as well, I must tell you that I am afraid to tell you what I see. I cannot look and so let me take you back to the present where there is still time to love each other and wish all of our friends the peace and joy that is Christmas. As Tiny Tim said in A Christmas Carol, God bless us one and all.

                                                                                 Esther