The view from Leon Dwight “Ike” Hager’s living room used to bring delight and solace to the 53-year-old man diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

Hager spends most of his day in a bed that has been placed next to his living room window, where he has a clear view of his front lawn.

At one time there were colorful and bright inflatable Christmas decorations sitting in the grass.

An oversized Santa, cheerful polar bear, even a Carousel…these were all items that kept the neighborhood children coming back to the Hager’s house each year to “watch the lights.”

Decorating for Christmas was an annual tradition enjoyed by the man neighbors jokingly call a member of “The Grizwalds.” Hager admits that he’s like a little child when it comes to Christmas and has donned a Santa suit now and then to bring a smile to a child’s face.

Opposite of the window are numerous pictures of children who have a special place in Hager’s heart. Their cheerful smiles and bright eyes stare back at Hager as he reclines on his bed, connected to tubes that provide him oxygen and a pouch that collects his urine, which turns a ruddy red color from the medication he takes for his pain.

Following Hager’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer this October, several of his friends and neighbors came together to put Hager’s Christmas lights and decorations around the yard and house – knowing that the task now falls far outside Hager’s current capabilities.

His home was the destination of many area families, whose children were amazed at the nearly 30,000 lights Hager would use to decorate.

Now, the festive view of lights and Christmas décor has been taken away – by a “bah-hum-bug” thief who came in the early morning hours last Thursday and walked away with the majority of Hager’s outdoor Christmas decorations.

“They weren’t stealing decorations from me; they were stealing smiles from the faces of little kids,” Hager says. “It was simply stealing the joy of Christmas out of children’s hearts. That’s how I see it.”

“It was out of the goodness of his friends’ hearts that they came to his home last weekend to put up all his Christmas decorations and on Wednesday night, early Thursday morning, someone stole half of them out of his yard. Every year people drive through Low Gap to see his and his neighbor’s Christmas decorations and now most of his are gone,” wrote Hager’s daughter, Michelle Hager, to the Coal Valley News last week.

The e-mail prompted a visit to the Hager residence, where Ike and wife Virginia Hager can be found enjoying the company of their neighbor, Nelson Buckner.

“It’s just dirty,” Buckner comments about someone stealing the Hager’s decorations.

Hager and Buckner have been putting the lights and Christmas decorations up in their yards for 15 years.

“Some people say that we’re trying to out-do one another, or are in competition, but that’s not the case. We just both love Christmas,” Hager said.

“I’d say that I got a garage full of decorations and that’s enough. Buddy, it’s a job to put them all out. I told my granddaughter that when she got married, it would become her job. Each year I say it’s my last year to decorate,” Buckner says with a slight smile.

“When I found out about five to eight blow-ups had been stolen, I was heartbroken. My grandchildren cried, as a few of them were their favorites,” Hager said.

Like most children, Hager’s six grandchildren had laid claim to their favorite lawn decoration and many of them were the ones taken from the Hager’s yard.

“It just broke my heart for the hard work of the guys who came and put them up and who didn’t want anything. The I.O.O.F.[Independent Order of Odd Fellows] Lodge men came up two weeks ago and some of the neighbors helped,” Hager recalled.

The decorations, the Hagers insist, are more than just plastic and wire. “It’s more than decorations; it’s about the enjoyment the children get from seeing the lights and also the enjoyment we get from watching the children,” Hager said.

Hager is a retired coal miner and minister, whose sermons are still remembered by area churchgoers.

“We’ve received several nice cards from people who say they remember my husband’s sermons,” Virginia says, sharing one such card, where a person has written that they can still remember the sermon about King Solomon and the Shumite girl

“That was my favorite sermon,” Hager says, and when asked to recount what the sermon was about, Hager shares, “The Little Shumite girl, was really the love of Solomon’s life.”

“Her parents were kind of wealthy people and back then, it was the thing to do to get up a dowry for your daughter. During those times, girls were looked down on in families because they weren’t work machines.

“Her parents got a vineyard as the girl’s dowry and she worked the vineyard herself. One day, a little shepherd boy came by and he his flocks as close as he could without getting his sheep in the vineyard. He visited her several times. Meanwhile, her parents were going ballistic – some low down shepherd boy, which was considered the dirties job. Came down on her pretty hard for falling in love with a shepherd boy. He told her he’d be back for her.

“The little Shumite girl would ask the villagers, ‘Have you seen him, who my heart loves?’ It got so bad that her father banned her to the house and sometimes she would sneak out to find the one her heart longed for.

“To make a long story short, one day chariots and a league of soldiers arrived at their home and the Shumite girl and her family were told that the King desired her to be his wife. This was a king who had women beyond number, and she asks, ‘why would he want me? Besides, I don’t want the King, I’m in love with a shepherd boy.’ She was taken into the preparation system to get married. Then, as they lifted the veil for her to see her husband for the first time, she says, ‘the last time I saw you, you were a little shepherd boy, but now you’re my King.’

“The love the shepherd boy had for the Shumite girl and the love she had for him, that runs parallel with the way Christ loved His church today and the way we should be looking for His coming at every moment,” Hager shares.

“I have had many, many requests for it,” Hager says.

“My prayers are simply for God’s grace and it it’s His will to heal me, let it be so. And if not, I’m a winner anyway,” Hager shares, commenting that when the oncologist delivered the news that he had between 3 months and 8 months to live, it became the biggest battle he and his family have ever faced.

“There’s no cure for pancreatic cancer,” daughter Michelle shared.

“With God’s will, I’ll be here next year,” Ike Hager says. “I thought about Apostle Paul and how God allowed Satan to put a thorn in his flesh. He was a chosen vessel to take the gospel to the Gentiles. Paul asked God three times to remove the thorn from his side, and Christ said, Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. The way I look at it, if his grace was sufficient for Paul, who was beaten 39 times with cat-o-nine tails, and he was shipwrecked and robbed and faced perils in the deep and among strangers and enemies – if God’s grace was sufficient to sustain him through everything he’s suffered, it’s enough to sustain me.

“I must say, I didn’t know what grace was until this [pancreatic cancer] hit me. I really desire the prayers of all the Christians out there,” Hager says.

Being born and raised at Low Gap, Hager says he has a huge support network in place, mentioning that at his 53rd birthday party – Hager was born on Halloween – close to 200 people showed up to help Hager celebrate.

“I’m a little child at heart when it comes to Christmas. I love to go all out on Christmas. I like to hand-make my Christmas presents that I give to people. My goal was to make all the furniture in the house,” Hager says.

Hager’s handiwork was evidenced in the many motorized Christmas decorations that were displayed on his lawn last year.

“A gentleman way up at Van stopped in about three months ago. He came in and introduced himself. He said, ‘You don’t know me, but I visit your house every year.’ We got to talking and he wanted to know if I would ever get power on the airplane to make it more realistic. I told him I needed a slip clutch and a slow RPM motor. He came back a few days later with the items and asked me, ‘Where would you like me to leave it?’ There it was, all in the yard. That shows you that there are people out there that get joy out of seeing Christmas decorations,” Hager says.

“I love to see the children sticking their hands out the window to wave and the parents stopping on their way to see the lights at Chief Logan State Park. They stop to take pictures with their children,” Hager says, as he remembers Christmases of years past.

He sighs and briefly looks out the window into a now-barren lawn, perhaps trying to recapture those memories.

It is apparent that the Hagers are grappling with the reason why someone would steal Christmas decorations out of their lawn.

“It’s not good to steal, but I think with the economy, that has a lot to do with it,” Virginia says.

“I think that whoever did it, they don’t have anything and they don’t want you to have anything. What goes around comes around and they’ll get their just reward either here or in the afterlife,” Ike Hager says.

Ike and Virginia say they’re not going to report the incident to law enforcement, saying they just “ don’t see any use doing that.”

“For me, it was just a heartbreaker. Even paying the power bill each year was worth it to see the joy it gives others. They stop and grin and will ask, ‘Can I ride that Ferris wheel?’” Hager recalls.

Though the Ferris wheel may not be appropriate for children to ride, Hager did make moderations to a red airplane, so that children can hop inside and allow their imaginations to propel them into a world on happiness.

The red plane is one of the few items that remains in the Hager’s yard, perhaps too heavy for the thief to carry away. In white letters on the plane’s tail are the names of Hager’s six grandchildren. It carries with it the dreams and happiness of more than the area children.