Oreos and Trading Cards

Oreos and Trading Cards

         Dan checked his watch, “2:30, School’ll be out in fifteen minutes and then Chad will be on the bus—another twenty minutes and he’ll be walking down the street.”

         He couldn’t help himself. Ever since Chad had been in school, the end of the school day held special meaning to him. It meant his eleven-year-old grandson would be coming home and into his world. Dan moved in to live with his daughter and her husband five years ago when his wife had died after a lengthy fight with cancer.

         Dan walked into the kitchen. His daughter, Lauren, noticed him and smiled. Her smile was meant for him but it was also a reaction to what she knew he was doing.

         “There’s a new package of Oreos in the cabinet, and I just opened a new carton of milk.” Lauren watched him walk to the cabinet and retrieve a plate. She knew he would place three Oreos on the plate and set it on the table. He would wait for Chad to sit down at the table before he would pour him a glass of milk.

         Some men played golf; some fished; some filled their hours bent over stamps or coins or handmade fishing lures. Dan’s life revolved around Chad. He looked at his watch again.

         “2:45, I’ll swear it’s been at least thirty minutes since I last looked,” he mused to himself. The last forty years of his total seventy-five had passed like a lightning flash, but the next twenty minutes drug out like cold molasses. “Yup, time’s a funny thing,” he thought.

          “I’ve got a special surprise for him today,” he informed Lauren as she straightened up around the kitchen sink.

         “Oh yeah, what ya got for him this time, Dad?”

          “Well, I had to buy ten dollars of bubble gum to do it, but I finally got a Barry Bonds baseball trading card. He’s been trying to get one of those for months now. Jimmy Petersen has one that he’ll trade him; but it’ll take a Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan to get it. You can’t get them Nolan Ryan’s anymore.”

         “I’m sure he’ll be excited about it, Dad.”

         She folded the dish towel with which she had been wiping the counter; she neatly placed it on the holder in the cabinet door. Lauren walked to her Dad and stood behind him. She put her hand on his shoulder and spoke softly to her father.

         “Dad, you have made a difference in his life. After Jerry died, you filled a place in his heart that was left vacant. A boy needs his father. In Chad’s case a grandpa worked just fine. He loved Jerry, but you have become his hero. Thanks, Dad. Thanks for being there.”

         Dan looked intently at the Oreos sitting in the plate. A tear crept at the corner of his eye. It slowly folded into one of the wrinkles of his eye and successfully hid there.

          “Fiddlesticks, I didn’t have anywhere to go or anything to do anyway. I didn’t do anything but grow old,” he growled.

          “I love you, Dad.” Lauren bent down and kissed her father on the cheek. They were both startled as the telephone interrupted the moment. Lauren walked to answer the phone as Dan checked his watch again.

         “3:15, he should have been here by now.” Dan furrowed his brow as he looked to the door expecting Chad to burst through at any moment.

          “Hello.”

          “Yes, this is Lauren Kesner.”

          “Yes, Chad Kesner is my son. Who is this? What do you need?”

         Dan turned his attention to Lauren. Her voice was alarmed and the color left her face.

          “No! No! That can’t be. He’s on the bus. He’ll be home any minute.” Lauren was clearly alarmed. She was shaking her head in denial.

          “Are you sure? Where is he?” She was visibly shaking. A feeling of foreboding gripped Dan. He had been here before. Bad news came suddenly and unexpectedly. He recognized the drill.

         Lauren hung the phone on the cradle and turned to look at her father. She did not speak.

          “My God Lauren, what is it?”

          “There’s been an accident. They said the bus has been hit by a gravel truck. It appears it ran the red light and hit the bus as it entered the intersection. They said we need to get to Wallace General quickly. My God Dad, I think Chad’s been hurt bad.” Lauren was shaking badly. “What am I going to do, Dad?”

          “Well, right now we’re going to the hospital. Get your keys. I’m driving.” Her father's strength, the same strength that she had witnessed as a little girl, commanded the moment. She did as she was told.

         Dan drove to the hospital carefully but quickly. He was on automatic-pilot. He realized that he must have talked to Lauren along the way, but he was not aware of what was said. All he could hear was the memory of a little boy saying, “Hi Grandpa, how’s yur day?”

         Dan pulled into the emergency driveway and headed directly to the entrance. There were cars and vans scattered haphazardly up and down the driveway. Parents and relatives were hurrying towards the entrance, each going through their own private moment of agony. He parked the car in a vacant spot that may or may not have been a parking space. He and Lauren then joined the stream of loved ones rushing to claim their little ones.

         The emergency room was chaos. Parents were talking over each other, each one trying to gain the attention of the nurses and attendants to receive information regarding their child. Police officers were scattered among the crowd speaking to various members of the congregated group. Dan noticed two or three groups of people huddled against the walls and seated in the chairs. They were holding each other and weeping, some of them uncontrollably.

         “My God, this is going to be bad,” Dan thought to himself. He reached for his daughter’s hand and squeezed it firmly.

          “Can I get your name?” an orderly with a clipboard asked Lauren.

         Lauren swung her head towards the voice. It was just a kid with a clipboard. “Yes, my name is Lauren Kesner and this is my Dad.”

         The orderly glanced at Dan and then turned his attention to his clipboard. Dan could see a list of names, some with checkmarks by the name.

          “Kesner?...Kesner?....Yes. Is your son Chad Kesner?”

         Lauren and Dan looked at each other. They were reluctant to answer, afraid of what they may find. “Yes, Chad is my son,” Lauren spoke firmly.

          “Ms. Kesner, you will need to speak to Dr. Franks. Will you come with me please?”

          “Just tell me about Chad. What does it say there about Chad? Is he OK?”

         The orderly looked directly into her eyes, “Ms. Kesner, you need to speak with Dr. Franks. Come this way.”

         The orderly turned and walked down the hall, expecting the two to follow. Dan and Lauren followed, still holding hands, praying as they followed.

         The orderly stopped at an open door. “Please wait in here. I’ll go and get the doctor.”

          “Please,” protested Lauren, “tell my about my son, please.”

          “I’m sorry ma’am. I will get the doctor as quickly as I can.” With that the orderly left the two in the small waiting room. The quiet of the room was a stark contrast to the chaotic turmoil of the emergency room. Dan felt his breast pocket for his cigarettes before he realized that he had stopped smoking ten years ago. But, in the place of the cigarettes he felt a small package. Dan fished the package out of his pocket and gazed at what he held in his hand. There in his hand was a bubble gum package with a Barry Bonds baseball trading card. His mind spun as he stared at the card.

         “My world will have no meaning without Chad in it,” he thought to himself. “What good is a Barry Bonds baseball card without Chad?” It was a thought too complicated to comprehend and completely overwhelming.

          “Ms. Kesner?”

         The two turned their attention to the distinguished gentleman in the white hospital coat.

          “Yes, I’m Lauren Kesner.” Her heart sank with foreboding and soared with hope at the same time.

          “Ms. Kesner, I’m so sorry to tell you that Chad did not make it. His injuries were just too massive. He died at about 3:15. I’m so sorry.” With compassion and sincerity the doctor skillfully extended his sympathies.

         The room swam around him. Dan refused to believe what his ears just heard. His heart ruptured with sorrow unimaginable. When he had lost Linda he felt that the pain would be unbearable, but the wave of grief that swept him away at this moment exceeded even that moment. He felt Lauren collapse against his chest wracked with tears of despair. Dan knew that it was his job to console his daughter in this moment. However, all his strength had instantly left him, as a lamp from which the power cord has been yanked from the wall. Dan folded his arms around his daughter, and they endured the storm together, not knowing if it would ever cease.

         Dan stopped glancing at his watch. He was unaware of how much time had passed. He and Lauren sat in the little room for what he felt was an eternity. People came in from time to time and conducted necessary business. Their pastor had arrived just shortly after they received the dreadful news. Friends and neighbors magically appeared and wandered in and out of the room. Sympathy and tears were shared in equal proportion. They were permitted to be with Chad for a moment. It was an unbearable moment. How Dan yearned for the boy that lay on the stretcher to jump to the ground and be the boy who came home to him every day. But it did not happen. His heart knew that it would never happen again.

          “Dan….Dan,” he was aware that someone was speaking his name. He tried to focus his attention on the sound of the voice. “We’re going to take you and Lauren home now. There is nothing more that you can do here. We need to get you home.”

         Someone led him to the car. He endured the ride home only because he had no other choice. His will to exist seemed to be ebbing away. Lauren took his hand, as he had done with her earlier, and squeezed it firmly. He looked at his daughter realizing that her loss was much greater than his, but he could not comprehend how that could be. She had lost Jerry in an automobile accident one year after he had moved in with them. Lauren was made of strong stuff. He decided that she would make it through this without his strength. He was just too weary to make the effort to be strong.

          “We will be in tomorrow to check on you, Lauren.” Dan heard someone say to his daughter. They had been taken home and consoled. It was now time for the private moments in the darkness. It was a time to wait for sleep to overtake him--a sleep that would not come. It was time for sleep to loosen grief's grip--a grip from which there was no release. Dan knew that he could not go to sleep. He could not be alone with his thoughts, and he could not escape them. He wandered to the kitchen to get something to eat, in an effort to pass the time and to do something.

         Dan’s eyes fixed on the table. There, as a reminder of what he had just lost, was a plate with three Oreo cookies. He crossed to the table and sat down opposite the snack that was waiting for Chad. Tears found the wrinkles of his face and tracked their way down. He reached to wipe them with his hand; it was only then that he realized that he still held the Barry Bonds baseball trading card in his hand. It was a little tattered and wrinkled now. He must have held it for hours. He placed the card on the table next to the Oreo cookies. He stared at the two simple gifts that were meant for his grandson. With clarity of mind that was unusual for that moment Dan committed himself to accomplish a simple but meaningful task.

         He formed the covenant in his mind, “The Oreos will be disposed of because they are perishable food items. But the card will last for a long time. It was my simple little gift to him. I will give him one last gift. I will place it in his hand to rest forever with him. I will purpose to give this one last gift. I will give it; and then I will wait until I’m taken home to be with those who have left me. That is what I will do.”

         Dan rose and walked to his room. He was too tired to hurt any more tonight. He had one more task to accomplish in the coming days, and then he would wait.