Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 1, 1994 TAG: 9401060234
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DRAPER LENGTH: Long
The operation had proved financially draining for her and her husband, Donald. But what upset her most was that the couple could not afford gifts for their sons that year.
She was crying about it when she heard someone outside the door of her home. She had a surprise when she opened it.
``There was nobody there,'' she recalled. ``But there were these boxes of gifts and food and clothes.''
There was also a card with a little money in it, signed by Santa Claus. ``And we never did know where it came from,'' she said.
Every Christmas since, the couple has played Santa Claus to some family facing hard times.
Their neighbors say Peggy Viers has the biggest heart in the Pine Run section of Pulaski County. But this year, she suffered congestive heart failure and was put on the list for a new heart at Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C. This year, Peggy and Donald Viers didn't get to play Santa Claus.
Usually, the Viers start preparing for Christmas as early as September, buying an extra can of food when they go shopping.
``It doesn't take much,'' Donald Viers said. ``By the time Christmas comes around, you've got a great big box of groceries.''
They also have delivered the fixings for Christmas meals and gifts ranging from toys to fruit baskets and Peggy's own home-baked goodies.
``This is a payback,'' she said. ``What's Christmas without cookies and candy?''
They tried to do it all anonymously, but some folks figured it out.
``We didn't realize people knew where it came from,'' Peggy Viers said. ``But I can't stand the idea of kids not having some kind of Christmas.''
She found out that some of her neighbors were in on the secret when a reporter called to do an article about the couple's Christmas rounds. They agreed to the interview mainly in hopes that other people would pick up their idea of spreading Yuletide cheer.
``It's just to let people know,'' said Peggy Viers, ``if it's just one thing, if you see one child that's not getting anything, if you buy that child one thing, that's all it takes because he's not expecting a lot.''
She entered the hospital Monday, after spending this Christmas season with her three sons and two grandsons and other family and friends.
Her heart is only functioning at 20 percent and she has been restricted to a wheelchair much of this year.
Meanwhile, the Vierses' sons have picked up their parents' way of celebrating Christmas by spreading holiday bounty to others. ``That's payback right there, when my three do that,'' Peggy Viers said.
Her doctors have told her that a transplant is her only hope. She said she prayed over the decision of whether to go for it.
``I just put it in the good Lord's hands,'' she said. ``He helped me make it so I'm not worried about it.''
``She left here real optimistic and felt like, you know, it wasn't going to take very long,'' said Johnny Howlett, a cousin who has also been her pastor at Memorial Christian Church.
Donald Viers is optimistic, too. ``When the time comes to be serious, I'll be serious,'' he said. ``We've been through two of them [operations] before.''
Peggy Viers had a heart valve replacement operation at age 32, and a second one eight years later. She was told after her second operation that she sang Christmas carols under the anesthesia.
At one point, her heart had to be restarted. ``We knew something was wrong because, when your heart stopped, you were getting off key,'' a nurse told her later.
Until the past few years, Peggy sang in her church choir. She also was a Sunday school teacher for its youth group.
``I love working with kids,'' she said. ``Now, you get me a bunch of kids, and I'm in seventh heaven.''
A lot of the young people she taught as children are now young married couples themselves. A group of them got together in December and dedicated an hour of Christmas music to her over a religious broadcasting station.
During her health problems this year, neighbors have called to ask if they can fix her lunch or whether she remembered to take her medication. Donald Viers and their youngest son, Robert, take turns with her meals. Her two sisters-in-law help her get out of the house to avoid cabin fever.
Peggy Viers has missed working in her garden. One day, when she sneaked out to pull weeds from her strawberry patch, a neighbor who spotted her suggested it might be time for her to get back inside.
Peggy has kept a beeper handy to let her husband, who works nearby at Xaloy Inc., know when she is in trouble.
``If I hit that thing that I can't breathe, we've got to move,'' she said, and her husband gets her to the hospital fast. ``We just worked our little system out. We found we're pretty good planners.''
If people wonder how she can be so upbeat, Peggy says the answer is simple. ``How could you not be perky when you know you're on everybody's prayer list and you just know everything's going to work out?''
She hopes a donor will be found early enough so that she will be sufficiently recovered by next Christmas to observe it as she and her husband have come to believe it should be observed.
``I'm looking forward to next year,'' she said, ``and we'll be back in it again.''
by CNB