“My daughter died in a hospital when she was six. Cancer. It was Christmas Eve. Nineteen years ago tonight.” He swallowed hard. “She died alone because I was too weak to sit with her. I was in the hallway, crying, feeling sorry for myself. And my baby girl died alone.”
I covered my mouth with my hand.
He smiled sadly.
“That’s why we do this, ma’am. That’s why we’ll keep doing this until every last one of us is gone.”
He walked out into the cold December night.
I watched forty motorcycles start their engines. Watched the Christmas lights flicker in the darkness. Watched them ride away into the night.
That was seven years ago.
Big Jim and the Iron Hearts have come back every Christmas Eve since. The tradition has grown. Now they visit three hospitals. Bring gifts for over two hundred kids.
Christopher’s mother comes with them now. She remarried four years ago—to one of the bikers who sang to her son. She says helping other families is how she honors Christopher’s memory.
“He would have loved this,” she told me last year. “He would have loved knowing his death inspired something beautiful.”
But every Christmas Eve, he puts on his Santa suit and shows up at the hospital.
“I’ll stop when I’m dead,” he told me. “And even then, I’ll find a way to keep coming.”
I believe him.
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