He quietly stood in the window of the large serving window ladling
beef stew into Styrofoam bowls and asking folks if they wanted an extra piece
of carrot. “I grew them in my root garden
along with the potatoes, and onions.” He
never seemed to ever smile. He just went
about whatever he was doing with a quiet manner and a solemn look on his face. Little did I know the miracle I would
discover in this short, plump, melancholy man I would attend group with on
Thursday nights.
His face came to me often as the holidays approached and I
neglected to give it much credence. I
went about my life and thought less and less as time passed. One night I found myself driving the country road
leading to the church where the group was held.
It was about 9:30 and I was on my way home when I came upon this
gentleman walking on the side of the road.
I stopped and inquired about his well-being. He told me that his truck would not start and
he was just walking to his house. I
convinced him to get in and took him home.
I offered to help him with his broken vehicle the next day and he smiled
at me without committing to anything. At
his house he asked if I would come in for a cup of coffee on the pretense of
giving me some money for helping him. After a near heated conversation about
the idea that Christian charity requires no remuneration, I finally got the
offered cup of Joe and sat in his living room enjoying the company and
conversation.
His house was a massive clutter of canvas bags with
envelopes bulging out the end. Not wishing
to be nosy, I kept my own counsel, and he never offered an explanation. The coffee cup emptied and I found cause to
leave. He told me that I could come help
him with his truck if I would allow him to take me to lunch for my efforts. Easily agreed on, we made time plans for the
next day.
I showed up the next day and found him at his kitchen table
slumped over a pile of letters. He looked
to be in distress and I called an ambulance.
He had had a heart attack and a stroke.
He spent several days in ICU before transitioning into a private
room. He had no feeling on one side of
his body, and was going to have to endure a rather extensive series of physical
therapy sessions to attempt to get him able to take care of himself. He was beside himself with worry and kept
asking me what the date was. He made me promise
not to tell the folks at the church about his problem. He refused the in-home nurse and therapy opting
to attend physical therapy sessions at the hospital. How he was going to accomplish this without
the use of half of his body did not seem to faze him. He was adamant that nobody come to his house. I tried to talk reason to him and finally
convinced him that he did, indeed, need assistance. He told me that he would pay me to drive him every
day. He told me that people who would
come to his house would instantly wish to clean and arrange it to make it more
livable and he would not have it.
I talked him into giving me nothing more than gas money and
to find someone to help him in his house that would not disturb anything he did
not want disturbed. I knew a young lady
who was in need of work who had worked in a nursing home for several years and
would work cheap. She was a Certified
Nursing Assistant so he could pay her wages with his health insurance as long
as a doctor prescribed the need.
Once set up with what he needed he seemed happy enough until,
that is, he got home and found out he could not sit at the kitchen table and
deal with the envelopes. He sat at the
table and wept over his dilemma. I could
do nothing but offer to help. He became
agitated and almost had another stroke when I reached for one of the
envelopes. I withdrew from the pile and
sat down to have a serious talk. I told
him that he needed to start trusting me.
I had earned that consideration for the things I had done for him, and
the secrets he wanted me to keep. I had
grown frustrated and angry at the situation.
It must have shown in my tone of voice.
He made me, once more, swear to silence before he told me his secret.
He was retired from the Post Office. He put 40 years in starting as a handler in a
transfer station and worked his way through the ranks of postman, to selling
stamps at the counter and on to being the Postmaster. His father had done the same before him, as
well as his grandfather and a few more “Great” in his lineage. It was all he knew. Retiring left a hole in his life that he
tried to fill with church, and activities in service to the country house of
worship…to no avail.
He remembered from his days as a handler that every year the
post offices around the country had been swamped with envelopes, mostly in
crayon, addressed “Santa Claus, North Pole.”
He always found himself smiling at the phenomenon. He never seemed to
figure out how they deluge of mail bags would mysteriously disappear every
year. He just accepted it and was
thankful that a few less bags had to be handled in the midst of the holiday
onslaught. When he moved out of being a
handler and on to better things, he forgot about it.
His grandfather passed away, and he wondered what would
happen to his house (the same house in the country where we sat). His father told him not to worry and moved
into the house himself. His mother had
passed away a year before and it seemed a good step for his Pop. Then the time came when it was his turn to
move out in the country. What he found
was that the house was really just an extension of the handling facility where he
worked in younger days.
Apparently, years ago when the North Pole letters had begun
to appear, one of his Great Grandfathers had diverted the letters to the house
in the country and began reading and answering letters. Not all of them, but as many as
possible. There had been a fund set up,
in treasury bonds, to sustain this activity after retirement. The service had been passed down to the next generation
and it was his turn. Only he had no children
to pass it on to. His wife and one child
had died in childbirth. His grief never
allowed him to marry again causing the dilemma where there was no one to
inherit the letters.
He would answer as many letters a possible before burning
the rest on New Year’s Day so as to start fresh the next year. It kept him busy and seemed to give him
purpose when his family died. He wept because the only thing that gave him
comfort had been taken away by the stroke.
The girl and I listened and felt like weeping ourselves. We volunteered to inherit the job. I was unemployed myself, and the girl had a
few kids that she could pass it on to.
He looked at us and sat speechless. When he regained his voice, he told me that
it was a big job. I told him I was
looking for a job. He wondered how I would get the letters. I told him to dictate a letter of reference
and I would take the exam to get hired at the Post Office. The girl shrugged her shoulder and said that
her six year old liked to write letters.
He told me to start reading letters.
He asked to be helped to his easy chair, and we brought him
letters. When he was ready to answer, he
would dictate his response to the girl it and then would sign it…
***
I walked out to my shop that morning remembering my somber
friend. I walked in the door and discovered
the first of the year’s mail bags being off loaded. I glanced at the picture of my friend along
with the girl (now my wife) sitting in the living room of the house, surrounded
by mail bags and smiling as if we had good sense.
With both the Misses and I working full time we were able to
use the fund money to purchase enough land surrounding the house in the country
to qualify for incorporation as a town. Once
that is, we built several more homes for the kids to move in when they got
married. As expected, I had progressed
in the Postal Service to a position where I was able to work the system to
assign a zip code for “North Pole Township.”
The shop was really a huge warehouse/handling facility with an office
that served to house a few post office boxes and a counter for selling stamps. It
did not take long for other areas of the country began sending the crayon
addressed letters to us.
The kids, her two and the five we had after marrying, all
worked at the small rural post office at some time while growing up. Three of them became postal employees while
the rest went on to college, careers, and families. Everyone in the family spent time everyday
answering letters. Even those with no
return address. New Year’s Day became a
family celebration with the burning of the leftover letters.
I grew a long beard and ponytail when my hair went gray and
ultimately white. I got a set of wire
frame reading glasses for Christmas that year and suffered gratefully through the
loving ridicule from the kids. My lovely
wife has always made sure there were sugar cookies for all who walked in to buy
a stamp or mail a package.
Standing there, soaking in the joy in my life, I found
myself smiling and remembered stopping on a dark country road to help….a jolly
old man who was having trouble with the reindeer's.
