From the Grave

This was my third Goodwill store. Even now, in mid-January, it wasn’t that cold in San Jose, but finding a cold-weather jacket for wear in near-freezing temperatures was proving harder than I anticipated. And I was running out of time.

My budget was basically the change I found in the cushions of the couch and under the seats of the car. I lost my job four months ago and my pregnant wife – our first child – and I had exhausted our savings while I sent out dozens of resumes, sat in twenty interviews, and waited over and over for that inescapable, “Sorry, we’re going in a different direction” rejection.

Jobs were scarce in my field in the Bay Area. More than once I had considered taking new classes and changing careers, but I really love what I do. Two weeks ago, the missus said, “There’s nothing keeping us here. Why don’t we look outside California?” I love that woman; she would go to the ends of the Earth with me.

Within a week, I had a telephone interview that went delightfully well. So well, they wanted me in person in two days. In Minnesota. In the middle of winter. My suit would be fine as I would be indoors mostly, but I needed something classy and very warm for the brief trips outside. And, as I mentioned, I couldn’t afford anything new retail and didn’t have time to wait for an online order. So, I’d been canvassing the Goodwill stores in the area, looking for the right coat.

Oh, to be sure, they had jackets. If I was going skiing, or climbing the Alps, I had a selection of jackets. And, I suppose, in a pinch that would have to do. But I had a good feeling about this company and I wanted to make a good - the right - impression. A ski jacket just wouldn’t do that.

There it was. It was an older style, something my father might have worn, but still classy, still elegant. At thirty dollars, it was just within my budget. And the camel-colored wool topcoat would work well with my navy suit. At least, I thought it would. The wife, who studied fashion at the local community college, might have a different opinion, which, being an experienced husband, I would defer to. But this was the last Goodwill within 40 miles and the last coat in that last Goodwill. What is it they say about beggars?

The interview went well. Beyond well, actually. The people I spoke with made me think of Silicon Valley in the early days: young, brilliant, hungry. Have you ever just clicked with a group of near strangers? I had this Business Ethics class at San Jose State and the first day the professor says, “You’ll work in teams of five or six throughout the semester and for the final project.” Immediately, I looked around the classroom and made eye contact with five other students, and we all just… nodded… at each other, like old friends. And that was my team. The interview felt much the same way, like old friends.

Sitting in the boarding area at Minneapolis-St Paul, waiting for my return flight, I got a call from their director of HR. I was being offered the position. I didn’t realize until that moment, as the buildup of four months of stress left my body, how tense I had become.

On board, I was fortunate enough to have the row of three seats to myself, and now that I wasn’t tense, I anticipated napping on the flight home. Using the topcoat as a pillow (some would cringe using a fine coat in such a manner, but remember I only paid $30 for it), I stretched out as much as anyone can in airline seats and closed my eyes.

But I couldn’t get comfortable. The jacket was fine, but there was something sharp sticking in my neck. Not like a thistle, but hard and pointy. At first, I thought I’d left my phone in the pocket, but a quick check confirmed it was in my pants’ pocket. Sitting up, I quickly checked the slit pockets on the outside and both were empty. Honestly, I was in such a hurry when I bought it, I never checked any of the pockets. Moving the coat around, I searched inside for the breast pocket and found a thin black notebook, slightly larger and thicker than a cell phone.

This wasn’t mine; where did it come from? Could it have been in the coat this whole time and I didn’t notice? Easily. It appeared heavily used, not threadbare or tattered, but worn, the cover scuffed and scratched, the pages slightly wrinkled at the edges, as if at some point it had gotten wet. Appearing stuffed full, an elastic band kept it from bursting open.

Slipping the band off, a $100 bill fluttered down to my lap. A flash of delight passed through me, I loved finding money in old pockets! Then I remembered that it didn’t belong to me. Yeah, it was only $100, but I needed to find out who the owner of the coat was and return it. That’s what I hoped someone would do if I left money in an old notebook. The Golden Rule, right?

Opening the book I read, “To my son, I hope this letter finds you well.” Oh, I thought, this is a personal letter in a notebook. I felt dirty just reading that much. I only wanted to find an address. So, flipping to the next page, I thought I’d skim the pages for something that looked like it might tell the name of the owner.

About three pages in, there was another $100 bill. Thinking there might be more, I held the book, spine-side up in an inverted “V” and gave the book a quick shake. Three more bills dropped out. Five hundred dollars now, this was serious. I quickly picked them up and added them to the previous two, while I looked guiltily around the plane to see if anyone noticed. My row was empty. Half the people appeared to be asleep. All was quiet. I inverted the book one more time and gave it another shake. Side to side, then jerky up and down. Five more bills fell out. I was up to one thousand dollars.

A few more shakes convinced me that I’d gotten all of them. Now I could continue skimming the writing for a name and, hopefully, an address or phone number. The writing abruptly stopped about twenty pages in. No name. No address. No phone number. I was at a dead end. I would have to return to the Goodwill and hope they kept records and the donor had completed a file for tax purposes.

I put the book inside my laptop bag in the same pocket as the cash and tried to get some sleep. I drifted in and out of sleep, partly because it was never comfortable for me to sleep on an airplane, despite having three whole seats to myself, and partly because I kept dreaming about the cash and who might have left it. Finally, I sat up and stretched as much as I could while sitting. Deciding I needed more, I got out of my seat and made my way back to the lavatory to wash my face.

When I returned to my seat, I flipped through a magazine I found in the seat pocket in front of me. Then the in-flight catalog. Then stared out the window for a while. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that money and who it might belong too. Pulling the black notebook out of my bag, I opened the cover one more time, thinking maybe if I read through it, there might be a name in the writing. But the book was backwards and upside down, so I ended up opening the back cover. And there it was, a name. I was near in shock as I slowly rotated the book, so the name was right-side up, and saw clearly my father’s name and my childhood address.

My father died of cancer the summer before my senior year in high school. It wasn’t sudden. Over a period of two years, I watched the father I knew, loved, and admired slowly fade away. The cancer changed him; the pain changed him; the treatments changed him; all to a point where I no longer recognized the withered husk that used to be my dad.

We had so many plans when I left junior high. He taught me to play both football and baseball. He came to every game; helped me analyze the other teams; worked with me playing catch night after night until it was too dark to see the ball. He was my biggest supporter, my loudest champion, and my best friend. As I started my high school sports career, he came to every game that year even when it was clear something was wrong.

When he stopped coming, my mother tried to pick up the slack; she was always there right beside him anyway. She tried to be louder, larger-than-life at my games to make up for his absence. But many nights she was home taking care of him or talking with doctors. As they stopped coming, my desire to be there diminished and my worry increased. I didn’t even try out my sophomore year. When he got sicker, my grades slipped too. Then slipped some more.

He got sick, and I was mad at him. He wasn’t invulnerable. Then he died, and I hated him for it. I knew – deep down – that it wasn’t his fault, but there were still so many things I needed him for. Who was going to teach me how to drive? How to shave? How to talk to the girl I had my eye on?

Finally, when the doctors gave him only a few months to live, I withdrew. I wasn’t there for him when he needed me, and I thought I was doing to him what he was doing to me. I realize now that I was trying to protect myself – if I didn’t feel anything for him, it wouldn’t hurt when he was gone, right? I used the excuse that I needed to focus on my grades, which I did, but the truth was, I could have done both. Should have.

A quick call to my mother confirmed that she had recently donated all my father’s suits to Goodwill. The next morning, I was there when they opened, buying up everything they had in men’s suits and coats. There were five more books, each with different amounts of cash in them, and a little note from my father. Twenty thousand dollars in total. He’d titled the notebooks, in a way, for the various chapters of my life that he wouldn’t be around for – dating, high school prom, college, marriage, fatherhood. The first one, when his hand was still steady, was on loss and death.

“I hope this letter finds you well. Let me start by saying that I forgive you. I forgive you because the truth is, I don’t want you to see me like this either. I know you’re in pain and I would give anything to keep that from you, but pain, loss, and death are facts of life. This is something you’re going to have to figure out on your own now.”

Even from the grave, my father was teaching me how to be a man.