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Previous Columns:
A Wooden Block Worth its Weight in Gold
It's Not What's on the Surface That Really Matters
Seven Mantras to Survive The Sleepover
What a Surprise (After the party nonsense)
The Greatest Gift of All (Birthday related nonsense)
Heatwole: Hero, Criminal, or Scapegoat?
Cell phone conversations: the new reality show
Life doesn't necessarily fit into pre-made forms
If only [what hangs on] these walls could talk
What I did for summer vacation
The red and the gray: a not too civil war
A fair weather friend she's not
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I Hope To See You Again
I recently finished reading "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" by Mitch Albom. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it. The premise of the story is that in the afterlife, there are five people who explain your earthly life to you. They may have been loved ones or distant strangers, yet each of them changed your path on earth forever.
There have been a few times this week I've imagined who my five people might be if this story were true, and I remembered someone from long ago.
His name was Mr. Watson.
In early June of 1976, I was admitted to the hospital after my bike and I tangled with an automobile doing 55 m.p.h. The car won. I was twelve years old at the time, but I remember the fear like it was yesterday.
Months in traction and pain have a way of making 24 hours seem more like 72. People floated in and out of my days and nights there in the Pediatrics ward, but there was one man who took a little extra time while doing his job. It always seemed to take Mr. Watson longer to sweep and mop the floor on my side of the room.
He would prop his elbow on the long handle, lean on it and ask me how I was doing. We'd talk for a while, his smile always a comfort. Not only did he smile with his mouth, he smiled with his eyes. That was a big deal for me then because nearly everyone who looked at me did so without realizing the horror revealed in their eyes. But in Mr. Watson's eyes, all I saw was compassion and love.
Over the months, he would bring his family to visit me on his day off. He gave me a gift one time, of a large ceramic piggy bank. It was painted with black and red spots and even then I knew it was somewhat garish looking. Then he sat it in the windowsill and told me to crack it open when I was "all finished getting healed up," and spend the money on something special.
He must have read my thoughts because he said "Now I know this pig isn't all that pretty on the outside, but you fill it up with coins and every time you add to it, you think good thoughts about getting better and that'll make him pretty on the inside." That was one of the last times I saw Mr. Watson, because I was finally going home.
Many years later, on the first Sunday in June of 2000, I woke from a dream about Mr. Watson, his smile, and the day I cracked my piggy bank open, a year after the accident. I literally had to use a hammer, as there was no other way to open it. I remembered the mixed feelings I had about destroying one treasure to get to a different one.
I tried to recall what I used the money for since I was "all healed up," but the memories and the dream floated away, leaving me with a sense of peace.
That lazy Sunday morning was the first time in a long while I had thought of that terrifying time in my life. I had nearly forgotten about Mr. Watson and his gift for helping me heal. I told my husband how odd it felt to remember him out of the blue like that, in a dream, twenty-four years later on nearly the same date we had met.
It was about a week after that, I received an envelope in the mail from my Grandmother and in it was a news clipping. It was from the obituary page and at the top was a photograph, the same picture etched in my mind, of a man who smiled with his eyes.
It was dated June 4, 2000. The first Sunday of June.
Mr. Watson, I’ll look forward to seeing you again one day.
Copyright © 2004 Bex Hall
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