"Hoping it might be so..."

It being Christmas Eve, Schuyler and I went to see Santa this afternoon. This year, we continued our streak of good Santas. After she sat down with him and introduced herself with her device, Schuyler handed him her carefully handwritten note, which he was actually able to decipher. They spoke softly for a while (he reminded her to leave him some cookies, and then flashed me a quick smile as if to say "Dude, you owe me one"), and then, as she was getting up to leave, he held up his hand and stopped her.

"Now, Schuyler," Santa said, "because you've been so good this year, and because you're such a unique little girl, I'm going to give you something that no other child is getting today." He reached down into a chest next to his chair and pulled out a large red sleighbell, ala Polar Express. He gave it to her and then whispered something in her ear. She smiled hugely and hopped away, ringing her little bell.

As we left the little stage area, I saw one of the helpers watching the whole scene. She was actually crying a little, and when she saw me looking at her, she smiled at me and wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry, she said, "but that was just so sweet! He hasn't done that for anyone else that I know of."

As we left, Schuyler was obsessed with the bell. She rang it and peered at it carefully. She seemed to be working something out in her head. Finally she said, "Daddy?"

I looked down at her. "Why?" she asked, indicating the bell.

"Why did Santa give that to you, and no one else?" I asked, making sure I understood the question. She nodded. I thought about it for a moment.

"Well, Santa said you were 'unique'. That means there's not another little girl in the whole world like you, and that's true. Did you know there's no one else anywhere who talks like you do, Schuyler?"

"Really?" she asked.

"Really. That's why you have to use your device to tell us all things. Your words are so special that no one else is smart enough to understand them. That's why he called you 'unique'. You're the most special little girl in the world. There's only one Schuyler anywhere, and I've got you. That makes me pretty unique, too."

She liked that answer.

I know my answer sort of flies in the face of what I'm always saying, about how I don't like People First Language because it sugarcoats disability and blinks when facing the monster head on. But I don't know, I guess on Christmas Eve of all days, I permit myself to believe that perhaps Schuyler's strange words aren't necessarily broken, but from some other world that I'll never be able to visit but which, through her, I get to glimpse.

In 1 Corinthians, St. Paul describes the tongues of angels, unintelligible to us. Maybe, just maybe, this is what he meant. On today of all days, even in my deeply held agnosticism, I'm like Thomas Hardy in his poem "The Oxen". I'm not inclined to believe in miracles, but that doesn't mean I don't pay attention to the things around me, like Schuyler, that sometimes seem miraculous.

I don't necessarily believe, but sometimes I hope, and that might just be enough.

---

The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock,
"Now they are all on their knees",
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know",
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

-- Thomas Hardy