Remember Drunk Santa?
Well, there’s a postscript to this tale, relayed to me by my sister.
A couple of days after Christmas, a neighbor knocked on my sister’s door. Drunk Santa’s son, who had been on the scene at the time.
“Hey, I just wanted to thank you and your family,” he began.
“Really?”
“Yeah, about my dad. About letting him be Santa for Piper and your nieces.”
“Oh, sure. It was fun.”
“No, you see, uh ….. he’s got Alzheimer’s.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Well, thanks, but, see, every year he dresses up as Santa. Then he thinks he IS Santa. We usually manage to keep him in the house when he’s dressed up, but he wandered outside and your sister saw him.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, I think she was just excited to have the girls see him.”
“I know. Well, I know he wasn’t really ‘all there,’ talking to the girls, but he was so happy afterwards. He was just SO happy. That entire day, he was a different man.”
The neighbor’s voice started to choke.
My sister teared up.
“Oh, I’m glad. It really was fun.”
“Well, thanks again. It meant a lot to him. You have no idea.”
When my sister told me this, I teared up too. I was touched, but I was also chastened. I had simply assumed he was drunk. I had judged him as nothing but a drunk. It staggers me, shames me, that no other alternative even occurred to me.
He was just a drunk, weaving across the street, slurring my niece’s name.
“Drunk” Santa wasn’t drunk, Trace.
The man had Alzheimer’s.
A magnificent lesson for someone like me who would have judged him harshly and quickly as a drunkard, too.
Whew. Big bambi tears flowing. I had a similar experience the other day (last night). Totally misjudged a situation, condemned and sentenced the offender in my mind and moved on. Ten minutes later, realized I acted like a jerk. Apologized to offender in my mind, and am storing that (and this) lesson in my mind for future encounters. This is a really sweet story. Thank you so much for sharing.
Wow, yeah. I would have done the same. This certainly makes me think that I’ll try harder to take a moment to see a situation for what it is, or at least give the benefit of the doubt.
Oh, man. That’s just something else.
(In spite of thinking him drunk, you did a good thing. Don’t second guess yourself on that.)
But see, most other people would never have been honest enough to tell us this. Which you did.
Which is why we all love you, and will be grateful for the lesson.
And I’m with Kate P.
It was kind of an ‘angels unaware’ situation.
I agree with Sal…you could have just left it as the funny, embarrassing, but pathetic story that you originally desribed. But you didn’t…you gave us “the rest of the story”. Thanks, tracey.
Tears.