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THE ELUSIVE GIFT OF TRAGEDY
by
Regina Rose Murphy

As I look back now, these last nine months were so intense with the final preparations for his leaving – it felt like a reverse pregnancy. I spent nine months preparing for his birth and now I would give him back.

Christmas 2004 was over and it had been a good one. Two really wonderful things happened that season. First, I was invited for the first time since 1993 to the J and R Flooring Christmas party. My daughter Jamie now solely owned the company, and my children really wanted me there. Being the ex-wife, I was obviously not welcome at prior year’s parties while John Sr. owned the company. That had now changed, so I got to see them play and it was a huge thrill for me. No one could have dreamed that it would be the last time this would ever happen. What a wonderful gift that was for me.

Another wonderful gift was that John, David and I adopted one of the local charities and gave them a fabulous holiday. I was working with the social workers for the State of Nevada in my sound research. One charity I worked with was the Oasis Center, a residential program for children with emotional problems that made it hard to place them in foster homes. Working with individuals with emotional problems was right at the heart of what I loved to do.

After one of the sessions with a housemother, I asked what Christmas was like at the center. To my horror, she described a very sad tale. Because of a state law, the employees cannot solicit funds or donations for the center. The state provides a gift certificate of $50 per child each year and that’s all the children receive. I knew that Las Vegas was an extremely generous community and other Las Vegas charities receive large donations at Christmas, but these poor kids had slipped through the cracks. For example, Child Haven, a more temporary shelter for abused and abandoned children, gets a great deal of attention and donations thanks to tennis star Andre Agassi and many other generous patrons. Child Haven always gets publicity during the holidays from all the local TV stations. I asked one of the housemothers to get a “wish list” from each of the children. Together, John, David and I, along with all of David’s generous associates and Susan Erling, a very generous friend of mine, raised enough money to more than fill their “wish list.” We bought brand new computers, new carpet (donated by my daughter Jamie), plenty of “impossible to get” X-boxes, and truckloads of gently used clothes and toys. The Oasis Center had a fabulous Christmas. We also gave them gift certificates for various stores near the center that lasted through half the following year.

We received the names of each child at the center and John had a special gift for each of them. He put $40 in each envelope, sat with each of them, looked into their eyes, hugged them and wished them a Merry Christmas. This experience had a huge impact on him and he cried in the car on the way home, for he wanted to do much more for them than just give them money. I talked about him giving them guitar lessons and how much they would love that because they loved the karaoke machine we had given to them. He said, “I don’t think I’m a good enough teacher.”

Soon Valentine’s Day came and Oasis Center invited us to a thank-you party in appreciation of the Christmas we’d given them. The kids went all out to show their thanks, each writing a thank-you note for the individual gift they had received. Also, they made a large 3 x 5 foot poster for all the group gifts we’d given the center.

Before we even knew about the thank-you party, John had mentioned he wanted to do something special again for the center. I told him, “I’ll pick up hearts filled with chocolate and cards for you.” He insisted, “Go to ‘Sees Candy’ in the mall. I want them to have the best chocolates available. And can you get enough cash for another cash gift for each child.”

As I mentioned before, I hate the mall but of course I did what he asked, complaining all the while I stood in the two-hour line. I could have bought the chocolate hearts at Target in five minutes (I guess there are still remnants of my martyr program). John insisted, “If I’m going to give them something, it’s not going to be crummy chocolate.”

Again he was so moved by the way these children were growing up without parents and he couldn’t get over it. John had connected with one young man at Christmas, and asked why he wasn’t there. He was told, “He wasn’t allowed to come to the party because he’s being punished.”

This was incomprehensible to John because he was never really punished as a child and felt that just living at the center was punishment enough for anything the young man had done. I explained, “With so many children, the rules and discipline have to be enforced to keep any kind of order. These house mothers do not have the same luxury of spoiling the children that other people do.”
For the first time in his life, John realized just how lucky he had been his whole life and how easy his life was in comparison to theirs. He even saw his relationship with his father from a whole different perspective. He began to see things, not as a spoiled child with a knee problem, but from the perspective of one who had much to contribute to this world. He became grateful for everything good in his life and started saying, “Thank you” constantly. He always said, “I love you, Mom,” but the added flavor of gratitude was especially nice. I was proud of him and who he had become.

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