DRUGS PROVIDE HEARTBREAKING ENDING TO CHRISTMAS STORY OF RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON

A mother with two children had moved into our neighborhood; the girl was about seven years old and the little boy three. That little Swede boy had the bluest eyes we, my wife and I, had ever seen.

They came to our house soon and because they behaved so well, we liked them around, all the more since our sons had gone off to college and were all alone. We saw them grow up right before our very eyes. We saw Bertha (not her really name) starting school and four years later Ron (not his real name) entering the school bus for the first ride to school. On weekends, we took them to downtown Chicago. We strolled through Grand Park, along Lake Michigan and the "Magnificent Mile" on Michigan Avenue. To stop into a McDonald's was a must. Ron now about 10 years old, would look up to me and chatter: "Grandpa, Grandpa (the kids called us grandpa and grandma) when you can't eat all your food, give the rest to me." Laughingly, my wife would buy him a Big Mac.

When he was 12 years old, we took Ron to see the film "Patton" in the Bismark Hotel. How proud he was seeing General Patton's Third Army tanks crashing through all resistance of the enemy. His face was aglow, his eye beaming with pride! "He will develop into a great patriot; loving one's country is the first ingredient of a life well lived," I told myself.

The year his sister graduated from college, Ron entered high school. He was well on his to a bright future. But to everyone great consternation, after half a year, he was out of high school. What had happened? His principal, himself grieving, explained: "The minute freshmen set foot on our school ground, dope pushers swarm around them. Some say, 'be gone devil,' some buy the poison." He turned around. Did tears well up in his eyes?

While his sister, by now a young and pretty woman, left, influenced by us, for Heidelberg, Germany, to pursue her further studies. Ron had set foot on a dangerous downhill road. Soon he enlisted in the Marines. We were overjoyed: the Marines will straighten him out!

And the pictures he sent back showed a stern Marine ready to chase a hundred Bolsheviks into all the four winds. And we were proud! Half a year later, two men came looking for Ron. He had gone over the hill. "As far as I now there are no hills in San Diego," I cried. I did not understand. He showed up in Colorado. He came home. Upon his mother's desperate crying, he was discharged and even pardoned. Upon that, he went to Oregon to become a lumberman. For a number of years we did not hear from him.

Then on a nice November day, he came home. Martha, his sister, putting something in place before going to work, threw a last glance through the window. Whereby catching the vision of a peculiar looking person. After some reflection, a picture emerged in her mind. That gait seemed familiar. "That's Ron," she called out suddenly.

Grabbing the telephone she yelled, "Barber, grab your tools land come over fast." And in came at the same time the barber and Ron who needed a hair cut badly, for his beard reached his belt, and on the back, his hair was of the same length. His sideburns covered his ears and shoulders. Martha pushed the two in an adjacent room, "Barber, do your best, I do not want the neighbors to see him like that," Martha told the hair cutter. While the barber worked on Ron, his sister spread the news of her brother's homecoming among friends, neighbors, and kin. Not too long after, a bathed, clean-shaven, and a nice hair cut, new underwear and even a new suit, stood Ron before us.

The family surely surmised that he some day might return and so they cared that the lost son shall have new clothing. The old stuff the family tossed into an incinerator. But, first of all, Ron was might hungry. We did not slaughter a fat calf, like the father in the Gospel did. "Grandma" knew what Ron as a little boy, already liked, leg of lamb. That's what he got with all the trimmings. And all joined in and ate because Ron, the prodigal son, had come home.

And afterwards, we rejoiced. We sang with music, like the people in the gospel, but without dancing.

But, Ron could not be moved to rejoice. He sat indifferent, making the impression that something was bearing down his body, spirit and soul. Martha wanted to help him. She knew people that could and did help labor and heavy laden. But Ron became irritated, even angry when told to admit he needs assistance because he is not well.

"I am not sick," he would encounter. His sister Martha replied on one occasion, "But brother, dope and drugs have worn you down through all the years. It has taken out of you, the sap of life. What is your future?" This blunt truth hit him hard. He mellowed right before our very eyes.

After a long while of silence, and after he noticed our sadness and saw some of our tears rolling down of some people's cheeks, he said, "Martha, you are so very right. I am 36 years old. When I was a kid in high school, I took a destructive turn in my life. Just as Eve in Paradise, who stretched out her hand to pick that horrible apple, because of which mankind is still bleeding of 1,000 wounds. So did I, stretch out my hand to receive that fruit of Hell, those drugs and dope of all kinds. And my peers were milling around to chain me to that "blissful high" which dope could provide. And, indeed, the first taste produced a sweet, careless feeling. Soon after, I felt I was under the power of a mysterious force.

"I was hooked and could not break free anymore. Andy because I do not want to see you grieving and heart-broken whenever you look at me, I shall return to Oregon. But I promise I'll work hard in the woods, and I'll save, and I will return."

That's what Ron said. And he returned to the woods of Oregon. On the night of Ron's departure I could not fall asleep, and yet I dreamed. I dreamed Ron had gone back to Oregon as he said he would. After weeks of cutting trees down, he felt weak, even sick; he did not eat, he needed all the money to buy cocaine, angel dust and all the other poisons. And so he left the sawmill and wandered off into the forest, only to be attacked by a wolfpack. He fought valiantly, killing two wolves with his club, until one beast jumped from behind and he went down.

Bewildered, I jumped out of bed. Filled with fear by that dream, I looked out the window to the east. I saw the sun emerging blood-red out of Lake Michigan behind the skyline of Chicago. Although 10 miles away, the skyscrapers seemed touchingly near.

Sorrow and grief have often been companions of my life, but on that Christmas day my hurt ran deeper than ever. Wolves will hardly harm Ron, but dope will. And it may come to pass that he will die away from home, a lonesome death somewhere in the state of Oregon.

What a heartbreak on a Christmas day!

Herbert Hirschfeld is a Cape Girardeau resident, retired minister and longtime writer.