A Sailor Began to Sing

By Sherry Downing

My mother and father, my two little brothers, and I were on a bus during the Christmas of 1944. We had just arrived in the United States and were making our way to Oklahoma.

The bus was crowded, smoky, and hot. I felt sorry for the extra passengers, mostly servicemen, who had to stand in the aisle. My mother and father struggled with the two children on their laps. Even though night had fallen hours ago, they seemed unable to settle down.

I looked gloomily out the window at the flatness of the countryside. I longed for home with all the fervor an eight-year-old could muster. At the same time I wondered how I would be accepted at my new school. Worst of all, it did not seem like Christmas, not one bit. The bus lurched slightly, people murmured and stirred, then went back to a stoic endurance. Mother sighed wearily.

Then a sailor standing in the aisle (and I never did know his name) asked Mother if she thought the baby would come to him. She looked up at him questioningly, made a sudden decision, and gratefully handed the child over. It was obvious that he had held a baby before as he expertly soothed and crooned to him. Around me I saw some of the first smiles of the day as people looked approvingly at the sailor.

Then he began to sing. Even I recognized “Silent Night.” Someone joined in, then another and another. As the chorus swelled, contentment rolled like a tangible thing down the aisle and out among the passengers. Everyone felt it. They could not stop with one song.

I wondered later what had happened. Was it the baby reminding us of that other Babe? Was it the young man—a reaffirmation of the goodness of life in a weary war? Whatever it was, it was the spirit of Christmas to me.

• Sherry Downing, mother of seven, serves as a Sunday School teacher in the Pitman Ward, and as a board member of Wilmington Delaware Stake Relief Society.