When I saw the post on facebook -about a child having his dying wish to meet St. Nick and then he passed away as Santa held him, my heart was flooded with sadness. One for the child getting his wish granted and two, passing away soon after.
I've always loved and believed in Santa. He represents love and kindness and in these wintery months with bone chilling wind and going stir crazy inside we all need that reminder. Kindness and love will get us through until spring when we can frolic outside and burn off some energy.
The story, published in the News-Sentinel on Sunday and picked up by outlets all over the world, was about Eric Schmitt-Matzen, who said he had promised to protect the identities of the child's family and the nurse who summoned him to the boy's hospital bedside. In follow-up interviews, Schmitt-Matzen continued to stand by his account but declined to reveal the identities of those involved, according to the News-Sentinel.
In a story posted on the newspaper's website Wednesday, editor Jack McElroy and columnist Sam Venable, who wrote the original story, said Schmitt-Matzen's story "remains unverified." They wrote that they could not determine whether his account was accurate. They say they cannot stand by the veracity of Schmitt-Matzen's account because it does not meet the newspaper's standards of verification.
Eric Schmitt-Matzen, 61, of Caryville, Tennessee, has been making children smile as Father Christmas for 9 years now and seeing those happy faces is his favorite part of his job.
Schmitt-Matzen received an urgent call from a nurse at the local hospital.
"She goes, ‘There’s a little guy that’s about ready to pass. And he's more concerned about missing Christmas than he is about dying,'" he recalled, noting that he went to the hospital as soon as he could.
"I met the parents and relatives down the hall. I said, 'If anybody feels like they’re going to lose it, please wait in the hall because I've got to be happy and jovial. If anybody starts to cry, please do run out the hallway because I can’t do my job,'" Schmitt-Matzen said.
"What's this I hear, you think you're going to miss Christmas?" he asked the 5-year-old boy. He nodded and Schmitt-Matzen told him, “No way. The elves had this present made for you for a very a long time ago."
Schmitt-Matzen gave the boy the present his parents had for him. He said the boy needed help unwrapping the paper but smiled when he saw the present.
"He laid back and looked up at me and said, ‘They tell me I’m going to die.’ And I said, ‘Can you do me a favor? When you get to the pearly gates, you tell him you’re Santa's number one elf.’ And he said, ‘I am?' I said, ‘Sure you are. And they’ll let you right in,'" Schmitt-Matzen said.
He said the boy then looked up at his eyes and asked, "Santa, can you help me?"
Schmitt-Matzen said he hugged the boy and that's when he passed away in his arms. "Tears were running down my face," Schmitt-Matzen said, adding that it took him a while to recover from the heartache. "It took two weeks to not be seeing his little eyes looking up at me all the time."
However, he says he is still committed to making Christmastime a magical experience for children. "I don’t look forward to doing it again but if I got the call I’d do it in a heartbeat," he said.
The newspaper that originally ran the story cannot verify any of the information that Schmitt-Matzen told them. There are reports of reporters searching as far back as 2015 for terminally ill children who passed around the holidays. A number of news site are adding a message before the article now saying none of this information is verified.
Schmitt-Matzen did not respond to multiple calls from reporters seeking comments or confirmation. When reached by phone this afternoon, a man claiming to be his spokesman told CNN he was working on a response. Schmitt-Matzen told the Washington Post he stands by his account. He would not name the nurse or boy.
We've all read funny jokes online and we don't ask for concrete information, who really was the lady who took her dead husband's money and buried only check with him instead of his hard earned cash? No one knows. Who was the dad whose daughter snuck out and was in a bad car accident that the dad died in while out looking for her? Who is this Priest and the name of the Rabbi that are hanging out in the bar? Who is this blonde that is so dumb she couldn't be named but we all make jokes about her?
The Santa story gave me the feels and with the outrage on the internet it seems it gave a lot of the feels. Messing with our emotions. That's the way of the world these days. How could we escape 2016 without one last tug to our heartstrings and a gut wrenching blow to our souls.
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