Dale's Globe

 Nikki Cottam

Once there was a young girl named Clarice, who treasured nothing better than the crystal castle in a snow globe that her brother had given her before he died.  He had suffered severely through cancer and had never been able to overcome it fully.  He had been diagnosed with it two and a half weeks after his twelfth birthday, and she was only eight at the time, and for the past five years he had fought it.  

Dale had never been mean to her like some big brothers are.  In fact, he cared about her so much that others couldn’t believe that they were related at all.  Every day he would get out of school and race home across the old highway near their house to pull her in his new blue and yellow wagon, the one that his parents had been saving up for his Christmas present.  She would squeal with delight as he pulled her quickly over bumps, her yellow hair gliding behind her.

Then one day, on his way home from school, a small car hit Dale.  Although he quickly recovered from his few injuries, the doctors discovered a small lump on the right side of his head behind his ear.  Soon afterward he was diagnosed with a severe brain tumor, and his mom and dad were told that he would live up to a year and a half.  He was only nine and a half and Clarice was just five years old.

His parents were slightly surprised when Dale said that with the short time he had left, he wanted to stay in school and keep living life the way he loved it.  Clarice was too young to understand that her best friend in the whole world would be leaving, and she was confused.  She wondered why her parents were sad a lot.  She wondered why Dale had to go to the hospital every once in a while when he seemed as well as ever before.

Every day, Dale’s mom and dad would take Clarice to pick Dale up from school, and they’d go downtown and do things they’d never done before.  Dale’s face would lighten up when he’d find out where they were going, and each time brother and sister would be laughing to tears with their new adventure.  Since the family was poor, they had never been able to afford the amusement rides or restaurants in the big city near their home.  Clarice knew that her life was changing, but her brother was still the same.  He was always there when she felt sad.  When the kids at school would tease her about how poor her family was, Dale would stand up to them for his sister. 

Dale knew how important his family was, and he contributed as much as ever.  When a neighbor needed gardening done, he took Clarice and surprised his neighbor with a well-trimmed garden.  When a young boy in the down the street fell off of his bike and cried so much that he couldn’t see, Dale picked the dirty boy up in his wagon and took him home, making sure the boy got cleaned up.  A tornado swept through a big city close to his town right before Christmas, and he was the first boy to fundraise for the refugees and their children to make sure they had a happy Christmas.  Dale did all of this without accepting praise and without money.

On his twelfth birthday, he gave his mother a necklace, which read “Mother”, and to his father he gave a tie with a picture of a father and son hugging in a park.  Then to his sister, he gave a beautiful snow globe, which contained a crystal castle.  It played her favorite lullaby as sparkles swirled around the castle.  Clarice was again surprised why both her parents were crying when she herself adored the gift.  Her parents had saved just enough to buy him a little trampoline, one that he’d always wanted.  They were surprised by his unselfish desires to make everyone happy.  He’d obviously scrimped and saved every penny for at least a year to buy these things that meant so much to his family.

One night, he sat on his sister’s bed and told her what was going on.  

“I’m dying Clarice.  In a little while I’ll be gone.  You know all those things I taught you to do?  Keep doing it when I’m gone, ok,” Dale requested.

Clarice looked at him sadly and told him that she had known he would be leaving, and she’d watched him carefully.  She knew that when he left, she would be the one to do all the kinds of things he had done for everyone else.  At age eight, she felt as though no one would ever compare to her big brother.  With tears in her eyes, she looked up at him and said, “Big brother, when you leave, I’ll miss you, but I know that you’ll be watching me to make sure I be good.  When I come, I want to be just like you.” 

Dale gave his sister a giant warm hug, one that little sisters love the most from their big brothers, and he told her about the globe he’d given to her.

“When you miss me, just push the button on the bottom and the globe will play music to remind you of me.  When you see the sparkles dancing around the castle, just remember that I’m up there, making a beautiful princess castle for you.  Remember that I’ll be with you and that you’re going to need to help out,” Dale whispered.  As she drifted off to sleep, Dale sang the lullaby along with the snow globe. 

The next morning, Dale had left his home on Earth.  He passed away like a snowflake flutters through the air.  His life was spent giving, and even at his dying moments, he made others happy.  At his funeral, a few thousand people attended, and thousands more letters of sympathy and gifts were sent to his family from all over the surrounding cities.  Surprised his family truly was with all of it.  Over half the things about him written in the letters were things his parents would’ve never known he did.  Clarice was sad because she missed Dale, but all she had to do was make the snow globe sing, and she would no longer feel lonely.  Clarice’s family inherited a large estate and fortune from the old lady Dale had trimmed the garden for.  She had no family, but felt like Dale was as wonderful a grandson as she could ever have imagined, so she willed all she had to his family when she soon passed on.

The letters ceased a little a few months after Clarice’s family moved into the grand estate, but Clarice knew that it was nothing compared to what her brother was building for her in heaven.  She carried on Dale’s tradition as best as she could.  She helped everyone, stood up for those who needed friends, and made toys for those less fortunate as she had once been. 

Two months after Clarice started a toy distribution organization, her mother became pregnant.  When little Tyler was born, Clarice promised herself and her little brother that she would try to be as faithful and loving as Dale was.  She told Tyler that she’d be just as good a sister to him as Dale was to her, and, thinking of Dale’s globe, she meant it.