I received this in an email from a very dear friend. It touched me very deeply, as I can so easily identify with it's origins. I just wanted to share it with our Dogwood family.
The True Story of
Rudolph
A man named Bob
May, depressed and brokenhearted, stared out his drafty apartment window into
the chilling December night.
His 4-year-old daughter Barbara sat on
his lap quietly sobbing. Bob's wife, Evelyn, was dying of cancer Little Barbara
couldn't understand why her mommy could never come home. Barbara looked up into
her dad's eyes and asked, "Why isn't Mommy just like everybody else's Mommy?"
Bob's jaw tightened and his eyes welled with tears. Her question brought waves
of grief, but also of anger. It had been the story of Bob's life. Life always
had to be different for Bob.
Small when he was a kid, Bob was often
bullied by other boys. He was too little at the time to compete in sports. He
was often called names he'd rather not remember. From childhood, Bob was
different and never seemed to fit in. Bob did complete college, married his
loving wife and was grateful to get his job as a copywriter at Montgomery Ward
during the Great Depression. Then he was blessed with his little girl. But it
was all short-lived. Evelyn's bout with cancer stripped them of all their
savings and now Bob and his daughter were forced to live in a two-room apartment
in the Chicago slums. Evelyn died just days before Christmas in
1938.
Bob struggled to give hope to his
child, for whom he couldn't even afford to buy a Christmas gift. But if he
couldn't buy a gift, he was determined to make one - a storybook! Bob had
created an animal character in his own mind and told the animal's story to
little Barbara to give her comfort and hope. Again and again Bob told the story,
embellishing it more with each telling. Who was the character? What was the
story all about? The story Bob May created was his own autobiography in fable
form. The character he created was a misfit outcast like he was. The name of the
character? A little reindeer named Rudolph, with a big shiny nose. Bob finished
the book just in time to give it to his little girl on Christmas Day. But the
story doesn't end there.
The general manager of Montgomery Ward
caught wind of the little storybook and offered Bob May a nominal fee to
purchase the rights to print the book. Wards went on to print,_ Rudolph, the
Red-Nosed Reindeer_ and distribute it to children visiting Santa Claus in their
stores. By 1946 Wards had printed and distributed more than six million copies
of Rudolph. That same year, a major publisher wanted to purchase the rights from
Wards to print an updated version of the book.
In an unprecedented gesture of
kindness, the CEO of Wards returned all rights back to Bob May. The book became
a best seller. Many toy and marketing deals followed and Bob May, now remarried
with a growing family, became wealthy from the story he created to comfort his
grieving daughter. But the story doesn't end there either.
Bob's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks,
made a song adaptation to Rudolph. Though the song was turned down by such
popular vocalists as Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore , it was recorded by the
singing cowboy, Gene Autry. "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was released in
1949 and became a phenomenal success, selling more records than any other
Christmas song, with the exception of "White Christmas."
The gift of love that Bob May created
for his daughter so long ago kept on returning back to bless him again and
again. And Bob May learned the lesson, just like his dear friend Rudolph, that
being different isn't so bad. In fact, being different can be a blessing.
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