Batteries Included

Ellie Braun-Haley
Calgary, Alberta
December 7, 2016

When we first moved into that little basement suite, I felt so at home. The family who owned the house lived on the main floor and I felt so connected to them. Years earlier my oldest sister had lived there with her husband and baby daughter. I'd also gone to school with the son of the couple who owned the house.

Things had been tough for that family because they never got to see their son grow up and have a family of his own. He was killed in a farming accident He was such a fine person and when I think of his parents having to continue life without the presence of such a decent, caring human being, it causes a sad ache in me. And when I think of him it touches me even more as I remember what his parents did for us on our first Christmas in their basement suite.

The basement suite was hardly a suite, just a huge room divided by two sheets of plywood. The bathroom down the hall was shared with two other "suites". Our kitchen area, besides a fridge and stove, featured a table and 4 chairs, cupboards and a huge box that my dad made. It was a type of Hope Chest. I always figured when we could afford it maybe someday we would buy a television and it would sit on the Hope Chest. For the present we had the little radio.

The radio was a Christmas present from our parents to my sister and I when we were kids. What a treasure! My sister would fall asleep at night with that radio on her chest, which explained the missing piece and huge crack in the casing. She had fallen asleep one night with the radio on. I guess when she rolled over in bed, the radio took a nose dive and the casing was cracked, losing a piece. Then she got married and I agreed she should take the radio for her new home. The radio came back to me when I married. Though the radio provided some entertainment that was not our only means of entertainment.

Money was tight and so we visited, people watched and played cards.

There really wasn't money to buy a car so when it was time for our baby to come I phoned my dad and asked him to take me to the hospital.

It would have been nice to have a car to take her home in because even though it was April the day the baby arrived a blizzard hit. It's rather late in the season to get that kind of weather but it does happen in our part of Canada.

By the time Christmas rolled around, the new baby, was eight months old and we'd invested in an old car. Now our strained budget included car payments. It left very little in the budget for much of anything else and fruit became a treat.

Early in December, the car decided that starting was too much for it. It needed a new battery. Money only stretches so far and there was no way we could afford a new battery so the car sat at the curb with snow piled high on it. This meant we wouldn't be traveling very far in any direction.

We could get the two blocks to the grocery store but walking long distances in the cold to visit with family was out of the question but we made the best of it.

I didn't drop hints around about our "needs." I didn't complain about not being able to afford fruit so I sure wasn't going to complain about not being able to buy a car battery. I never imagined for a moment that others were aware of our needs.

That Christmas week, the landlord sent his daughter downstairs with an early Christmas gift for our baby. It was a doll, the first doll and our daughter's very first Christmas gift!. Then we were told to come out into the hall and look up at the top of the stairs. Something square and black sat at the top of the stairs. We were told that it was from the family (our landlord). We fairly flew up those steps, excited that it really was what it appeared to be. It was a car battery. We were soon running down the stairs, along the hall way and back up another flight of stairs to tell the family an excited, exuberant and a heartfelt, "Thank you." It was a most exciting moment!

You know, I remember when I was little and mom and dad got me this doll that made a soft crying sound when I squeezed her tummy. I was so thrilled. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. When I saw that car battery I got the same "excited in the pit of my stomach" feeling. Our landlord and his family must have cut back on their own Christmas spending just to help us out. This was a family who really took the meaning of "giving" seriously.

I am going to carry this memory with me forever, our Christmas gift, with batteries included!

Dear readers:
I was so excited when Chicken Soup For the Soul selected this story and three others for their Christmas in Canada book. The contracts were signed and I was double happy because mom was still alive and she could celebrate with me! The book was due out in November 2013. At the last minute a lovely great pile of stories arrived and the editors of Chicken Soup were in a quandary. They wanted to give a chance to some of these new writers. They kindly contacted me to tell me Batteries Included was going to be pulled. I wasn't too happy with the news. However, I am glad the new writers had an opportunity to be featured and two of my stories did make it into print in that book.