Digging

It’s not like the old man really meant anything to him. The old guy left when he was 8 years old. His mother’s boyfriends are the ones who really raise him. But still it was his blood father lying there. He listened to the deep labored breaths. The old man knew his son was there. A nurse came in, read the chart, wrote down the heart rate and blood pressure readings. Then said “There isn’t much time left. Now is when you should make amends before it’s too late” He wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or the old man.

What do you say when you should have said things 40 years ago? He had nothing to say. If it wasn’t for the call from the hospital 3 days ago, he wouldn’t have even known his father was still alive. It was a little shocking to get a call saying your father is alive…..but might not be by the time you got here. That the old man wanted to see him. That he told everyone he had no one in the world except for a son he hadn’t seen in decades. He needed to see his son. So they called. He made arrangements and went to the hospital.

By the time he got there the old man was in a coma. Might not make it through the night. He had lived a rough life. The old man’s body was older than his years. What a wasted trip he thought to himself. The only reason he stayed was because of the flowers in his room. Who had sent them? What had he done all those decades? Why didn’t he ever try to contact his son. It wasn’t anything personal about why the son stayed, more like a curiosity of a wasted life and the wave of mortality you feel when death upon others. So he got a room in a motel near the veterans hospital and returned the next day, and the next. There was no change in the old man’s condition. But more flowers came in.

So here he was with an almost complete stranger. Waiting for he did not know what. When the nurse left. He went up and held the hand of the weak body on the bed. The old man stirred

“Son?”

“Yes Sir”

“Oh thank God you came. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you in your life. I know you were doing well and I didn’t want the demons in my life to affect you. “

His eyes never opened. But he felt the old man’s fingers rubbing against his fingers.

“I know all about your life. I saw you grow up and knew you were better off with out me. Remember everything works out in the end for the best if you just lead a good life”

For some reason tears started to well up in the gentleman’s eyes

“I haven’t much. I can’t give you much. But know all I have I give to you. In the back yard of my house there is a little something, something very valuable to me. Something I never wanted anyone else to ever have. It is yours. It’s buried deep and protected”

He started gasping. Monitors started going off and nurses came running in . The old man gasped “Everything goes to my son here. Everything!” The gentleman stepped back into a corner of the room and watched as the fight to save a life went on. Doctors came in and one of the nurses escorted the gentleman away from view of the old man dying and into the waiting area at the nurses’ station.

It wasn’t long till the Doctor came to the waiting area. She didn’t have to say anything. The long sober look on the Doctor’s face said it all. There were words but they didn’t mean anything.

A priest came up and asked if there were any words of the good book he would like to hear. “None” He asked if any arrangements had been made. “None”. The gentleman said “I don’t even know what religion he was” The priest hung around for a while and then left. When he came back, with the Head Nurse, the priest said “Young man, Your father was Protestant, and he may have been very poor but he was a Hero.“ The nurse said “Here are his personal effects he came in with, please sign here” Then handed him a large white plastic bag. He was numb by all that had transpired and uttered his thanks to both of them. Slowly left the hospital carrying the bag.

The rain outside seem fitting for strange mood he was in. When he got to the Motel, he opened the bag. There was a lightweight coat, shirt, pants. A well-read tattered and worn paperback book “John Ransom’s Andersonville Diary”. An old pocket watch, A key chain with 3 keys on it, a few singles, a two-dollar bill and a fiver, a ball point pen, a black notepad that had grocery lists and the cost of each item, some crossed out as if to save money, the total never exceeded $30.

Then there was the wallet. It was old and falling apart, taped together in some spots. No drivers license, but there was a U.S. Passport ID Card, A Veterans Administration ID card, a voter ID card and a library card. A list of medications taken. Membership cards for the VFW, American Legion and some senior citizen discount cards. The most shocking thing of all was the in case of emergency card, it had the gentleman’s name….and address. The address he had just moved to 3 months before.

The next day the hospital called to ask if there was a particular funeral parlor he wanted his dad taken to. It took him a second to realize they were talking about the old man and he was going to correct them that he didn’t have a Dad but he stopped himself. The next one in rotation was picked. He went to the business and they were all nice and polite, but he couldn’t really answer their questions. They said they would research and get back to him the next day.

He went to the old man’s house. The neighborhood had been nice at one time but that was a long time ago. The key worked in the old door. The place was small and packed but tidy. One bedroom one bath, with kitchen, dinning room, and a living room. No TV, just a radio in the kitchen, He took note that a couple of books in the living room were from the local library. He would return them in the afternoon. There was a small yard and a shed that might have fit a Model T but no modern car would ever fit in it. Inside were tools, a push mower, tent, backpack, bicycle, a folding kayak and a metal detector, cheap but looked workable.

He went into the house and check the cabinets, there was food, not a lot but can goods to live on for about two weeks, an almost empty fridge, the 2% milk had gone sour. In the bedroom he found just a few clothes, faded pants, shirts worn thin, nothing had been bought in a decade it looked like. And in the corner, uniforms, VFW, American Legion , and Patriot Guard, a couple of large American Flags, and United States Army uniforms from the Viet Nam era with lots of decorations on them.

The old man had said the most valuable thing in his life was buried in the back yard. He put on some of the old man’s clothes, jeans flannel shirt, work boots and went out to the shed where he took the shovel and metal detector, replaced the batteries and started at the back porch steps. Almost immediately it started going off right in front of him. He started digging, got down about a foot and scanned left to right with the detector and still strong signal right in front of him. He increased the size of the hole and was down about 3 feet. Still he found nothing, Again while in the hole he scanned and the detection was just as strong as ever. He kept digging and scanning. He became obsessed. There had to be a fortune in gold or coins down there to give such a strong signal. Hours later had to use the ladder that was in the shed to get down in the hole to scan. Still a very strong signal below his feet. By the end of the day had dug down 12 feet and still no treasure. He could not believe the old man could have dug down that deep. The neighbors had been watching him but never spoke to him, thinking he was crazy to be digging so much. Then he pondered if the Metal detector was broken. He took it out of the hole and up to the porch. He brought out frying pans, plastic bowls, books, forks and spoons. There on the porch he passed the metal detector over them. It would go off over metal things and not over non-metal things. He also noted when ever it was around his toes it would go off. He took the boots off and tried it again on his feet. It was silent. He then passed it over the construction boots, and it went off ……. whenever it was over the toes. Oh, what an idiot I am he thought. He had spent the whole day digging, chasing the steel capped safety work boots he was wearing. He laughed a hysterical laugh until he saw the neighbors staring at him. What a waste of a day. He slept very well in the old man’s bed that night.

The next morning wearing his sneakers he took the metal detector to backyard again. He couldn’t scan around the deep hole ‘cause of all the dirt from the hole so he started on the other end of the porch. After a few paces the detector went off again. Without his feet in the way. Then he dug down two feet and hit something. He dug up an old Coffee can. It rattled. He took off the cover and discovered inside $200 dollars and a nice small black notebook. He did not consider $200 to be a nice treasure nor the old mans most prized possession. The notebook he figured was an accounting of the accumulation of this ‘wealth’. He was shocked when he read the letter inside to him. It was an accounting of all the times the old man had seen him play a little league game, his middle school play, his high school marching band performances – he never missed a performance, his college debate competition, his company softball games. Everything in his life that was open to the public the little old man had been there. He realized that the man’s most important treasure had been him!

The neighbors had the police come that morning. They had his hole and steel tipped boots in their report. A Television producer saw the report, came to the gentleman, and said he wanted to do his weekly national TV show on the story. The gentleman said, “So I can be the laughingstock of the Nation?” The producer chuckled and said, no but that will be a fun side bar to the story. The story we are going to show is the Viet Nam Hero, who shunned all fame after his actions won him the Medal of Honor. His Vet friends loved him and sent all the flowers but did not know he had saved the future President’s life. He is getting a full military funeral in Arlington National Cemetery and we are willing to pay you $20,000 for the rights to your father’s story.