by Bob Brown
“No problem,” replied Jason. “I really just stopped for a minute. I’ll give you a call later tonight.” He put his arm around her and gave her a final kiss on the cheek.
“OK. Thanks again so much for the flowers. I’ll get them into water as soon as I’m done on the playground. Bye.”
Then she was off to solve the next Creekside crisis, which seemed to be taking shape as two boys busily chased after a screaming little girl. She cradled the flowers gently against her shoulder as she hurried off.
Jason turned and headed off toward the side of the building.
*****
As Jason rounded the corner and headed toward the parking lot, his cell phone rang.
“This is Jason.”
The voice on the other end of the phone was tense and erratic. It was Kyle. He was rambling on, running everything together. Jason had no idea what he was saying.
“Kyle, slow down. What are you saying?”
“Jason, it’s my dad. He just collapsed. They’re taking him to the hospital.”
“What are you talking about? What do you mean he collapsed? Where are you? Are you at work? What hospital?” Jason couldn’t get the questions out fast enough.
Eventually Kyle managed to get enough of his story out so that Jason had the picture.
Apparently, Mr. Garrett had been working in his office at the dealership and had suddenly just collapsed to the floor. A call had gone out to the Emergency Medical Response team. The ambulance had arrived in less than ten minutes. Mr. Garrett had been taken to Mercy Hospital. Kyle had no information on his condition.
“OK. Thanks, Kyle. I’m heading over there right now. I’ll meet you there.”
It was just a short drive to Mercy Hospital in the Hillcrest area of San Diego. Jason thought about going back and telling Karen. But since he didn't really know anything, he figured it best to wait until he had something concrete to pass along. No point worrying her. Besides, Karen probably had her hands full on the playground.
*****
Fifteen minutes later Jason pulled into the Emergency parking lot at Mercy Hospital. He jogged to the front entrance, where the pneumatic doors swished open in front of him. Arriving breathless at the front desk, he silently vowed that he was going to get more serious about his jogging with both Kyle and Karen.
A middle-aged nurse with a pleasant smile looked up from a stack of papers. “May I help you?”
“Yes, I’m looking for a Mr. Garrett. I was told he was coming here. He would have come by ambulance in the last half hour or so.”
The nurse looked at a list of names on the clipboard in front of her and nodded. “Yes, he was brought in twenty minutes ago. What is your relationship to him?”
“Just a friend.”
“Hey, Jason. Thanks for coming.” It was Kyle.
“Kyle, I was just asking about your dad,” said Jason. Then, turning to the nurse, “this is Mr. Garrett’s son, Kyle.”
“OK,” replied the nurse. Then looking directly at Kyle, “I’ll see what I can find out. In the meantime, would you mind filling out this information, please?”
The nurse handed Kyle a clipboard with several pages attached. They found seats in the corner as far away from the rest of the people in the waiting room as possible. Kyle went mindlessly through the process of filling in the blanks.
It seemed like a waste of time to Jason. He suspected that any minute now Mr. Garrett was going to walk around the corner and they’d all be passing through those pneumatic doors talking about the inconvenience everyone had been caused because of a dizzy spell, gastric gas, or a heart palpitation.
He had no idea how very wrong he was.
“Excuse me. Are you Kyle Garrett?”
Jason looked up to see a young doctor looking at him. He was short, maybe mid-twenties. Doogie Howser came to mind. He was wearing a white coat over green surgical scrubs, a stethoscope hanging around his neck and a handful of pens sticking out of the pocket of his coat. The nametag said ‘Dr. Peters’.
Even though it wasn’t his dad in the hospital, Jason felt it. Just like he had the day his parents had died. Fear. It was as if someone had sucker-punched him and knocked the wind out of him. His heart was pounding in his chest, but he couldn’t catch his breath. The lights in the emergency room were suddenly way too bright. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, their voices screaming in his ears.
It was then that Jason realized for the first time that Mr. Garrett had been -- was -- like a father to him. He had taken him into his dealership, given him a job, and treated him like family for over eight years now. Jason had already lost his real father, without even an opportunity to say goodbye. He wasn’t ready to do that again with Mr. Garrett.
From somewhere he heard, “I’m Kyle Garrett.” Kyle was up out of his seat.
“I’m afraid I have some very bad news, Mr. Garrett.”
Fear became reality.
“It seems that your dad had some sort of cardiac episode this afternoon. We thought he was stable when the ambulance arrived, but apparently his heart just gave out. I’m terribly sorry, but he’s gone.”
Jason could see Kyle swallow hard as he fought back the panic written on his face. “What do you mean ‘gone’?” asked Kyle.
“I’m afraid that your father is dead.”
“But how is that possible?” Kyle managed. “He was fine this morning. He’s never been sick a day in his life. You must be mistaken.”
“I wish I was, sir. But there’s no mistake. We’re not sure exactly what happened. His heart just stopped beating. We’ll know more after the autopsy.”
Jason could see Kyle was struggling to make sense of what he had just heard. He was standing there, shaking his head, like it was all just a bad dream. He imagined Kyle thinking he was probably just dozing at his desk back at the dealership, that he would wake up, shake it off, and everything would be fine.
Kyle stared blankly into the distance.
“Mr. Garrett…"
“Can I see him,” Kyle quietly asked.
“Of course. Please follow me.”
Kyle handed off the clipboard with the half-completed paperwork to the nurse at the desk and followed the doctor down the corridor. Jason followed, not sure whether Kyle would want him to. But he followed just the same. He definitely didn’t want to just sit in the waiting room.
As the three walked deeper into the bowels of the emergency room, Jason was only remotely aware of the other doctors and nurses brushing past him in the hallway and of the conversations going on around him. No one seemed to pay much attention to him or Kyle. Didn’t they know that his best friend’s father was dead? How could they just go on about their business like everything was OK?
Dr. Peters went into the last room on the left. ‘ER Six’ the sign said. A dark green, cloth curtain had been pulled around what Jason assumed to be a hospital bed in the middle of the room. Assumed, because the curtain hung suspended from a circular track in the ceiling and reached all the way to the floor. For all he knew there could be an elephant behind that curtain. He actually hoped that there was.
Dr. Peters didn’t pull the curtain back along the track. Instead, he gently lifted the curtain open at one end and motioned for Kyle to step inside. Dr. Peters let the curtain fall behind Kyle.
Jason decided to just wait for his friend and sat down in one of three plastic chairs lining the wall just inside the door.
“Please take whatever time you need,” Dr. Peters said to Jason as he headed back toward the door. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Jason just nodded.
Minutes later, from behind the curtain, Jason heard Kyle softly praying the Lord’s Prayer. Then he heard gentle sobbing.
Jason moved slowly to the curtain and stepped inside. He put his arm around Kyle’s shoulder. Kyle looked up at him, tears streaking his cheeks. Then he just hung his head.
Jason stared at
Mr. Garrett, lying on the table. Whatever they may have done or not done in trying to save his life wasn’t apparent now. He was lying peacefully, dressed the same way Jason had seen him hundreds of times: A white, button-down, short sleeved shirt and a simple tie. A couple of pens and a leather case for business cards were still in the chest pocket.
He was covered from the waist down with a pale green sheet, his arms stretched along his sides. His gray hair was only slightly mussed, and his eyes were closed. He could have been sleeping.
As Jason watched, Kyle reached out and gently touched his father’s cheek. He reached for his left hand, raised it slightly, then bent and kissed it. Then he started to cry again.
The sadness Jason felt for his friend nearly tore his heart out. He had rarely known Kyle to be emotional, much less to cry. He squeezed his friend’s shoulder, unsure what more he could do, unsure what Kyle wanted him to do.
As Kyle continued to stand in silence, holding his father’s hand, Jason decided it best to let his friend grieve in his own way, by himself. That was, after all, how Jason had wanted it when his parents had died. So he gently removed his arm from around Kyle’s shoulder and slipped silently past the curtain, returning to the plastic chair just inside the door. He closed his eyes.
It could have been two minutes. It could have been twenty. But some time later, he heard Kyle’s voice. “Jason.”
Jason looked up. He hadn’t been asleep. He was sure of that. But neither had he been paying attention. He felt like he had deserted his friend.
But when he looked at Kyle, he saw no sign that he felt deserted. There was no sign of distress, or even sadness. There were no more tears. To Jason’s amazement, Kyle actually had a slight smile on his face.
“Ready to go?” asked Kyle.
“Uh, sure,” replied Jason. “Are you OK?”
“Yea, I’m fine.” Kyle turned and walked out of the room, leaving Jason and Mr. Garrett alone in ER Six.
By the time Jason caught up with Kyle, he had retrieved the clipboard from the nurse at the desk and was just sitting down to complete the paperwork. Jason sat down and stretched out his legs.
Jason didn’t really want to interfere either with Kyle’s work or his private thoughts, but he was concerned about the change that had come over Kyle and wanted to make sure his friend was truly OK.
“Anything I can do?” Jason asked tentatively.
“Nope. I just need a few more minutes with this paperwork. You don’t really need to stick around if you don’t want to.”
“No place I’d rather be,” replied Jason.
While Kyle completed the emergency room forms, Jason stepped outside and left a message for Karen. She would be finishing up at school shortly. Jason told her only that Mr. Garrett had died and that he was with Kyle. He told her he would call later with more details.
About the time he completed the message, Kyle walked out the door. There was nothing about him that would indicate he had just pulled the curtain around his dead father.
“Kyle, are you sure there’s nothing I can do?”
“Really, I’m OK.”
“That’s just it,” began Jason. You are OK. I can see that. But I don’t understand how. How can you be OK if your father just died? No goodbyes. No last wishes. Nothing. It took me months to get anywhere close to being OK. How can you really be OK?”
As he said it, Jason suspected he already knew the answer. Kyle just confirmed it.
“Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying,” said Kyle. I’m still very sad that my dad is gone. I mean, you saw me crying in there. I’m embarrassed about that. But after I got through that, I prayed over my dad, and suddenly everything just felt OK. I thanked God for the life that he had allowed for my dad and for the time that I had with him.
“I even thanked God for you, and for the advice that you gave me that allowed my dad and I to reconcile our relationship. These last five or six years were really great.”
Kyle stopped, as if searching for something more to say. “I’m not happy that my dad is dead. And I’ll miss him more than I can even imagine right now. But I’m at peace with it. You know, like you said, that ‘peace which transcends all understanding’.”
Then, almost as an afterthought, Kyle added, “I don’t know why, or how, or when, but I sense that even this is part of God’s plan. In His time, we’ll know what it all means.”
Chapter 38
Kyle always expected that one day he would be the owner of Garrett Motors. He had even considered that one day his dad would die. He just never expected that both would happen at the same time.
In the days following his dad’s death, Kyle was busy with funeral arrangements and with the actions necessary to transition legal ownership at Garrett Motors. He was also busy facilitating the changes to the Board of Directors for the Garrett Charitable Foundation.
Fortunately, Mr. Garrett had been an astute businessman who had excellent legal counsel in the crafting of documents for the dealership and for the Foundation. As a result, Kyle’s ascendance to ownership of Garrett Motors and to leadership of the Foundation were seamless and unchallenged.
Mr. Garrett’s autopsy results had been expected to take weeks, but they were available on the Monday afternoon following his death, courtesy of connections Kyle had through the Garrett Charitable Foundation. The official cause of death was listed as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which, as explained by the doctor who called with the results, was a thickening of the heart muscle. According to the doctor, the thickening caused additional stress on the heart, to the point where the heart had just stopped working.
For his part, Jason did his best to support Kyle, remembering well his own state of mind following the death of his parents. But there wasn’t much to do. Kyle didn’t miss a day at the dealership and personally handled nearly every detail of the funeral arrangements.
*****
“Hi Gus,” Jason said with a smile as he got out of his car.
“Well, if it isn’t the big shot advertising executive,” Gus replied, frisky as ever. “Long time no see.”
Jason had stopped to drop off some quotes he had offered to obtain for Kyle. Since Kyle was doing most of the funeral planning himself, Jason was left with the odd jobs Kyle would throw his way.
Jason reached out and shook Gus’s hand with both of his. “So how are things around here since Mr. Garrett’s death?” Jason wanted to know that Kyle was doing OK.
“That Kyle is pretty amazing,” said Gus. “Just keeps moving along. Not sure he’s slept since last week, but things are pretty much the same as they’ve always been.”
“I noticed the sign when I drove in,” Kyle said, pointing to the large LED display at the entrance to the Garrett Motors lot. “Nice touch.”
The sign typically displayed scripture verses or sales messages. Today the twenty five foot screen displayed a full color picture of Mr. Garrett, along with the birth date, date of death, and a scripture verse from John 11:25-26:
‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.’
“By the way,” Jason added, “I hear from Kyle that you’ve been promoted to Sales Manager. Congratulations.” He wrapped an arm around Gus’s shoulder and gave him a quick hug. “That’s awesome.”
“Thanks,” replied Gus.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you or Kyle about the status of your advertising campaign with WADP. How’s that going?”
“Doin’ just fine. Fact is, your friend Mr. Perkins was here yesterday to talk about our next set of commercials. Garrett’s now under exclusive contract with WADP for at least another couple of years. You did a good thing with that Jason.”
“I’m just glad it all worked out. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
Just then Kyle came out. Gus said his goodbyes and headed back toward the
showroom. Jason hugged his friend and handed him the quotes.
“I hope this is what you’re looking for. If not, just let me know and I’ll be happy to get them revised.”
Kyle took a quick look at the sheets. “Nope. This is great. Thanks a lot. This will save me a bunch of time.”
*****
Four days later, on a cool Friday afternoon, Mr. Garrett’s funeral was held at the Immaculata on the campus of the University of San Diego. Kyle felt it only appropriate.
The funeral proved difficult for Jason. As he sat in the second row with Karen, he was haunted by the memory of his last visit to the chapel when, as a college senior, he had been unknowingly searching for something he didn’t even know was missing.
That seemed like another lifetime ago. In the years since, he had both found what was missing and then apparently lost it again. In his mind, Jason was right back where he had started.
As Jason watched the priest perform the funeral mass in front of the giant crucifix on the wall, Jason felt lost and angry. The last time he had gazed on that cross, his life had held such hope and promise. Now he was consumed with resentment over the death of his parents and the declining state of his career. To those setbacks he now added the unexpected loss of his best friend’s father.
While Kyle delivered the eulogy for his father, the ache in Jason’s soul became almost too much to bear. He put his arm around Karen and pulled her closer to him in the pew. They both wept openly as Kyle poured out his heart with the love he had for his father. Jason felt like he had lost his parents all over again.
Later, as the chapel emptied following the funeral, Jason and Karen lingered in their seats. Karen clung tightly to Jason, her head bowed in silent prayer. Jason just stared blankly ahead, feeling empty, sad, and bitter about things lost or taken from him.
When Jason and Karen finally exited the rear of the Immaculata and emerged into the gloom of the late afternoon, they saw Kyle engaged in an animated conversation with Sydney. As the conversation ended, the two hugged and Kyle kissed her gently on the cheek. Sydney looked over and waved at Jason and Karen, then quickly joined a group of friends walking in the direction of the parking lot.