Hey friends, I came across this great, really touching story which I would like to share with u all.
There was this little girl who used to make her living by selling matchsticks on the streets of Toronto in Canada. In December, temperature does go down a lot in this part of the world. It was Christmas eve & the whole city was looking beautiful with every major street flooded with lights, covered in a crisp layer of snow; every shop looked like having a different theme & there she was carrying bundle of matchsticks under her apron walking on the streets. She hadn’t sold anything that day. She was wearing a thin coat over her dress which was somewhat like in rags. It is true she had slippers when she left home but it was of not much use as they belonged to her mother, which she had no lost running after the carriage to make her way back home. One of the slippers she could not find, and a boy seized upon the other and ran away with it, saying that he could use it as a cradle, when he had children of his own. So the little girl went on with her naked feet which were quite red & blue in the cold. She roamed over here and there for some time until she found a secluded dark place between two buildings; she went there and sat under a tree. She didn’t want to go home; she knew her father would not excuse her for not selling anything and would beat her black-and-blue. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The snowflakes fell on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders, but she regarded them not. Her home was as good as here she thought with only one roof covering them through which the wind howled, although the largest holes had been stopped up with straw and rags. She had drawn her little feet under her but couldn’t keep off cold.
“Ah! Perhaps a burning stick would give me some relief” she thought. She drew one out –‘scratch’ How it spluttered as it glowed!! It was really a wonderful light. She could feel the warm of the heat. She felt like she was sitting besides warm iron stove and the poor child stretched out her feet as if to warm them. But the joy was short-lived and there she was holding only the remains of the half-burned matchstick in her hand. She rubbed another matchstick on the wall and her eyes fell on the window above. The room was amazing; dimly lit; on one side stood a beautifully decorated Christmas tree; the table was covered with a snowy white table-cloth, on which stood a splendid dinner service, and a steaming roast goose, stuffed with apples and dried plums. And what was still more wonderful, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled across the floor, with a knife and fork in its breast, to the little girl. Then the match went out, and there remained nothing but the thick, damp, cold wall before her.
She sat down again and lighted another match. Now, she found herself sitting under a Christmas tree which much bigger and beautiful than she saw inside. She looked at the thousand of leaves tapering towards her all looked as if they were greeting her. She stretched out her hand to touch one; and the match went out.
She then looked above at the rising Christmas lights and they felt like the countless stars over the skies. Suddenly she saw one star falling, leaving behind a bright streak of fire. “Someone is dying” she thought. For her grandma, the only one who ever loved her, told her about that. “A soul is going up to God” she used to say. She rubbed another match on the wall and in its dim light she could see a pale looking figure walking towards her. The woman kept on coming nearer & nearer to her until her face became clear. It was her grandma. She became so happy after all those years. “Grandmother,” cried the little one, “O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree.” And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.
In the dawn of morning there lay the poor little one, with pale cheeks and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall; she had been frozen to death on the last evening of the year; and the sun rose and shone upon a little corpse! The child still sat, in the stiffness of death, holding the matches in her hand, one bundle of which was burnt. “She tried to warm herself,” said some. No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, nor into what glory she had entered with her grandmother, on Christmas day.
Our lives are full of surprises. We suffer a great ordeal everyday trying to open that Pandora box. We expect it to be full of happiness, joy. What we forget, is true happiness lies in the small wonderful things which we often tend to ignore. They are not far away but reside around us. It’s just they ought to be identified. One should try to find happiness in everything one does. No wonder he will then have the most beautiful and wonderful experiences in his life. Life is short; live it to the full....
