Christmas Bell

                                                 Christmas Bell
I felt gloomy last Christmas. When I was fourteen years old, I’d begun collecting knives. Someone had stolen my collection the previous Christmas. It had only been worth two thousand dollars at most, but it had been worth far more than that to me.

When I was nineteen, I woke up from a fever and became a mute quadriplegic. I’ve remained a mute quadriplegic to this day. That knife collection reminded me of a time when I lived in an able body and was priceless to me, but someone thought of it as so much money to buy drugs.

In the midst of my depression last Christmas, I made myself do something to restore my Christmas spirit. Pitts, a friend about an hour’s drive from here, offered Daddy a bird dog. I wasn’t too excited about getting another bird dog because neither Daddy nor I could hunt it, but I decided to ride with my parents to get the new bird dog the Friday before last Christmas.

Before we got the dog home, my mother named her Bell, but I wasn’t too impressed with her. Pitts had let her run wild in the woods around his home and I didn’t see how anyone could ever get close to her, but I was wrong.

After my parents kept her in our home or on the end of a rope for a few months, they released her. I expected her to run and keep running, but she didn’t. She stays within a few hundred yards of a house, where she feels loved and she’s not content just to receive love.

She gives love. When I write stories and do other things on my eye-controlled computer, she lies near my feet. If either of my parents moves, she tries to follow them and she jumps on bed with Daddy to wake him up most mornings.

While that trip to see Pitts last Christmas didn’t put me in the Christmas spirit, the year with Bell has. She’s made me realize that most people had rather give than receive as she does. A few people become addicted to drugs and other things and will lie, cheat, steal, and hurt people to get what they want, but we can’t let these people mold our lives.