by Don Childers
“I told you I don’t feel well,” Bill blurted out, pushing Sharon away, flopping back into the bed and pulling the covers over his head.
Sharon’s voice turned stern as she looked at the lump in the bed. “Bill, I have just about had it with you. We’re going to Robby’s tomorrow and you look like shit!”
Bill pulled the covers tighter around his head.
Where was the Bill she had known? Where was the Bill of faith and love? Somewhere he had lost himself and she feared that he was also losing her. She gathered herself up and said, “Bill, I’m going to work now. I will be a little late. If you can manage it, I would really like you to get up, shower, shave, and look decent. Then if you can find the time in your BUSY SCHEDULE, you might clean out the closet and get the decorations out for Christmas.”
Bill ignored her and pulled the covers tighter around him.
Sharon stared at him, a tear forming in her eye and slowly making its way down her cheek. “Well, goodbye.” With that, she opened the door and let Jerry into the room. Before Bill could react, she slammed the door and then slammed the outside door and left.
Jerry bounded onto the bed, only to be harshly rebuked by Bill. Jerry wasn’t dumb and retreated to the corner of the bed. Bill, for a moment, seemed to regret what he had done, but only for a moment. He flopped back over, pulled the covers up and slept the morning away.
Bill finally got up around two in the afternoon. He dressed (sort of), decided not to shower or shave, and sat down to channel surf. By the time Sharon returned home, Bill had gone back to bed.
Sharon sat in the dark room for hours that night. Her hand was slowly petting Jerry’s head, caressing his ears, thinking—and praying—and crying. Something had to change. Her stomach seemed to knot up. Bill had dropped out of counseling months ago. He was distant. They had not made love for months. She was getting angrier and angrier. The children had noticed. Inside her there was that knowing, awful truth that she might have to leave Bill. The very thought caused her to silently sob. She prayed and prayed and cried some more. All the time Bill seemed to be asleep, but he wasn’t.
As Bill lay there that night he also wondered about everything. He never should have destroyed that wreath. He never should have come to Central Avenue. It was his ego, his pride. He had been happy at his last church. No; not really. He felt like everyone was passing him up, getting the larger churches. Is that what it is about? Is ministry nothing but a career like everything else? Where was God? Why had God abandoned him? He had served for decades, put up with crap, done a lot of good, and changed a lot of lives. Where were the rewards? He had lost his home, lost his ministry, lost his pride, and might lose his family. These were the thoughts cascading around Bill’s heart that evening until finally sleep took over.
The next morning when Bill awoke, he knew he had to make some changes. He would get up, get dressed, he thought. Where was Sharon? He turned onto his side and noted that her side of the bed had not been slept in. He got up and walked into the living room. Sharon was sitting in the chair in the living room.
“Hi honey,” Bill said. “I’m sorry for the way I have been acting for the last few days. I have been such a jerk,” he said and looked to Sharon for a response.
Sharon said nothing. It was then that Bill noticed a suitcase packed and sitting beside her. “Bill,” she said, “we have to talk.”
Those words hung in the air. Bill had feared this moment, knew it was coming. Sharon was leaving him. He deserved it. He had not been much of a husband lately. All he could do was slowly sit down in the chair opposite her.
“Bill, this is hard for me to say. I don’t know what is wrong with you. You just seem to not see anything clearly. I’m sorry you lost the church and I am just as angry as you that they have forgotten about you. You don’t realize how hard it has been for me all these years. All those parties I went to, all the services I attended. Now please understand me I do not regret for one moment being a support to you. But time and time again I have had to bite my tongue as I watched you attacked and watched you not getting the respect you deserved. This last church was a nightmare. Anyway, that’s not what I want to say.” She paused and drew in a breath. Bill slowly let a breath out. He knew what was coming next. He had counseled dozens of broken marriages and the knot in his stomach told him his was unraveling before his eyes. For some reason at that moment he began to feel anger, not pity. Strange!
Sharon continued. “Bill, I love you. The children love you. I’m not leaving you, if that is what you’re thinking. But I do need a break. I need some space. I think it is best that I go on to Robby’s without you. I think you need some time and space to sort things out. I don’t know any more if you want to stay in this marriage. I need time to think and so do you. So I called Robby and Lisa and we talked last night and we all think that you need to have some time to sort things out. What do you think?”
Bill could not believe the words. Did the kids not want him around? All he could manage was, “Honey, I said I was sorry. Why are you leaving me?”
“Bill, you didn’t hear me. I am not leaving you. I’m going to Robby’s for Thanksgiving. We will all miss you, but in your shape, you will not enjoy one moment. We think you need some space, and I most surely do. It isn’t going to be much of a Thanksgiving, but I think this is for the best. Please hear me: I am not leaving you and I love you.”
Bill sat. It was as though the world were crushing in on him. All he could say was, “I love you and I am sorry.” Then he added, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we both need some space.” Bill reached out for Sharon, but sensed this was not a time for hugs. Sharon got up, moved close to him, lightly kissed him, picked up her suitcase, said good-bye to Jerry and left. Bill did not see her tears nor did she see his. He thought last Christmas was the worst Christmas ever; he was wrong.
-19-
For Bill’s family, Thanksgiving was not a day of thanks. Sharon, Robby, and Lisa had little appetite. They spent the day talking about their father and husband, wondering if the old Bill would ever return. This was the Bill who had a deep laugh, a sarcastic wit, and a deep love. Robby recalled all the times that his father had helped people, leaving the family to respond to a death or a crisis. At the time he had resented the interruptions, but for the first time, he began to appreciate his father. He remembered how they were once walking the plaza in Kansas City when a homeless man had approached him. Robby’s first impulse was to tell the guy to get lost, but not his father. His father had struck up a conversation and given the guy a couple of bucks.
“That’s so stupid,” Robby had said. “All he’ll do is by liquor or drugs.”
“Well, that will be his problem,” his father said. “Our problem is whether we help a stranger or not.”
Robby remembered that his father and mother often would set aside twenty or so one-dollar bills to hand out to the homeless on the plaza or at other public areas. Once, after they had handed out all their money, another homeless person approached them.
His father had said: “Sorry, all we can give you is a blessing. We’ve given all of our money to others.”
The man had looked at them. “So you are the ones. I heard about you guys. Look, you don’t have to give me anything, but let me give you something.” The man looked at them and said, “Bless you all!” Robby remembered that at that moment he had felt more pride than at any other time.
Lisa remembered how proud she was to see her father standing at the pulpit preaching away. She had always loved his sermons. Unlike Robby, she still went to church. She had even thought about maybe, just maybe, going into ministry. However, those ideas were now on hold, because of Central and what they had done to her father.
Sharon talked and remembered the tender moments. For some reason it was the times that Bill stood up for others that made her so proud. In many ways she was proud that he had destroyed that damn wreath, but she would never tell anyone.
For the three of them, Thanksgiving was a time of remember
ing and of hoping that somehow, somewhere, Bill would find himself and would once again find God or at least a reason to be.
For Bill, Thanksgiving was the loneliest time he could remember. He vacillated between despair and anger and sadness. He was gruff with Jerry and then playful. As he sat in his underwear through the morning, he also thought long and hard. Maybe Sharon was right; maybe this was all for the best. He had to admit that over the last few years he had lost his sense of joy with the church. All the fighting, all the administration, all the competition, and all the hate seemed such a contradiction. Jesus had been about love, welcoming all people, forgiving all people, loving everyone. The church seemed to be about success, welcoming only some people, and definitely not loving everyone, especially, it seemed to Bill, the people who served the church.
Sometime around noon Bill decided that he had to do something. He got up, went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and took a long look at himself in the mirror. He quickly shed his underwear and stepped into the shower. The warm water felt refreshing. Emerging from the shower, he actually felt a lot better. Going to the closet, he again felt waves of anger as he looked at the closet, stuffed full of clothes, some in boxes. There had been plenty of room in their other house, he thought. No, he was going to change things, he thought again. He reached into the closet and pulled out a pair of jeans, a bright green shirt, and western leather belt. He pulled on his tennis shoes and in that moment came to another decision. He would clean out the closet in the hall and put up the decorations for Christmas!
Opening the door to the closet, he was for a moment taken aback by the mess. How could something so small have so much stuff in it? Jerry, sensing that his master was having mood changes, bounded around the room, excited.
“Well, Jerry,” Bill said, slowly lowering himself down, “we have one hell of a lot of work to do even finding the decorations!”
With that, Bill began to pull boxes out of the closet. They should have been more organized, he thought to himself. They had lights crammed in with keepsakes, ornaments with financial records, and, he wondered, where is the star? Jerry was in dog heaven as he poked his head into one box and then another. In one box he discovered one of his long lost toys that somehow had gotten packed and forgotten.
Bill worked for some two hours with the result being a bigger mess than before. Toward the end he was just dumping the contents out and sorting through them. Something in one of the boxes caught Jerry’s attention. While Bill was poring through the ornaments, looking for the one his mother had given them, Jerry spotted an old, yellowed envelope. Grabbing it, he bounded off with his prize. Bill caught the movement out of the corner of his eye.
“Jerry, drop it!” Bill yelled. Jerry sensed a game and bounded off into the next room, gleefully placed a paw on the envelope and began to tear it open.
“Jerry, damn it, I don’t have time for this,” Bill said as he lunged after the bounding dog. Finally cornering Jerry, Bill grabbed the envelope from his jaws.
“Jerry, look at this, you tore it open. This might be something valuable like a lost lottery ticket or something.” Bill reached over and patted Jerry’s head, who suddenly realized he was not in serious trouble. He bounded off to search the growing pile of treasures on the living room floor.
For some reason, Bill did not just toss the envelope away or stuff it back into a box. He paused and looked at it. It was an ordinary legal-sized envelope. On the outside was a faded date, “Christmas, Murray”. Finishing what Jerry had started, Bill saw three old soup labels fall to the floor and a note. The labels were from cans of Campbell’s chicken and rice, chicken noodle, and vegetable beef soups. The note said: “The best Christmas gift ever—from Mary Pond.” Bill turned the labels over and over in his hand. Then he remembered.
PART TWO: THE GIFT
-20-
It was almost three decades before. Bill was graduating from the University of Oregon. It was a time before iPods and MP3 players, before the Internet, and even before computers had become a household item. Mechanics sneered at the foreign cars that were making an appearance in the country. Bill had not always wanted to be a minister. In fact, he had started at the University of Oregon majoring in political science or “poly-sci”, as it was called. He hoped to be a community organizer and perhaps to do something to change the world, or at least his corner of the world. Bill looked the part. His long hair and beard and his well-worn jeans made his family suspect that he had indeed gone off the deep end.
Bill’s family had attended church off and on. So when he had what he said was a religious experience in his junior year of college, they were as surprised as he was. Bill had just broken up with a girl, and his sisters always believed that on the rebound, he found God.
So after his graduation from college, Bill enrolled in a seminary in Texas. In August he loaded up his old 1964 Dodge Dart and began the trek to Texas. The day he left for Texas, it was humid in Eugene, Oregon. His family had moved to Eugene when Bill was young, so it was natural for him to attend the University of Oregon. He could live at home and have more money for other things. Thus when Bill loaded up his Dodge for the trek to Texas it would be his first real time away from home.
That day, as the last box was placed into the back seat of the Dodge, Bill’s father Milt, his mother Joyce, and his sisters (Julie who had just graduated from high school and Nicole, ten years younger), looked on. His mother made no secret of her feelings. Tears were welling up in her eyes as she said goodbye to her firstborn. Bill’s sisters would also miss him, but now each of them would have their own room. When the older brother moves, they had said to each other, they could spread out. They had actually hoped it would happen after Bill graduated from high school but no, Bill had stayed at home through college.
It was his father that Bill would always remember. The two of them were both acting like it was no big deal but knew that it was.
“Here, let me give you a hand,” Milt said. His hands were rough from years of working under the hoods of cars. He was a mechanic for the Chevrolet dealership in Eugene. He grabbed the rope that was wound around the car-top carrier that was perched on top of the Dodge.
“I got it,” Bill said, but before he could react, Milt had a hold of the rope and pulled the knot tight.
“Now, you drive careful and be careful with this load! I checked everything out. The plugs are fine. The oil’s changed. Did you put in the box of tools?”
“Yes, Dad,” said Bill with a little impatience in his voice.
The car was ready, but for several moments they all stood looking at each other. It was Joyce who made the first move, grabbing Bill and hugging him so that his breath left. “Now you call us when you get there,” his mother said, tears flowing down her face. Bill had a stoic look. He was not going to get emotional, he kept telling himself.
His two sisters each gave him a hug, almost acting bored with the whole affair. He was only going off to graduate school and probably would move back into the house after that, they thought. Milt stood off behind Joyce. Then Bill and Milt looked at each other, trying to figure out what to do. Milt thrust out his hand. Bill took it. “Take care, son, and drive carefully,” Milt said.
With that, Bill climbed behind the wheel, shifted into “R” and slowly backed out the driveway. He slowly drove down the street, waving out the window, turned right, turned left, and caught the freeway for a new life.
As Eugene faded into the background and the Dodge purred north toward Salem and Portland, Bill did not think of much of anything. He had decided to get to Texas by first going to Montana and meeting a friend of his that had also decided to pursue ministry. Paul Sinclair had been Bill’s friend all through high school. It was Paul who had invited Bill to his youth group and gotten him started back to church. It was he and Paul who had had hours of discussion about God, religion, music, politics, and Miss Wilson their strict high school math teacher. Paul had gone off to college at the University of Washington and Bill to the Univ
ersity of Oregon. They had kept in touch all through college. In their junior year they had taken a trip to L.A. and barely escaped being arrested because of some of their antics. It was a further strange coincidence that they had both come to the conclusion to go into ministry and had chosen the same seminary. So Bill was traveling to Red Lodge, Montana where Paul and his wife now lived. Together they would make the trek to Texas.
The miles passed by. Bill turned east at Portland, crossed over the Columbia River and began the journey across the deserts of eastern Washington. Somewhere, Bill did not know where, he pulled over to the side of the road to have lunch. His mother had packed him a lunch of some of his favorite things. There was cold chicken, potato chips, and her famous potato salad. The latter was stored in a container filled with ice to keep it cold. Also in the container were several bottles of Coca-Cola, by now ice cold. Bill got out of his Dodge. It was a hot day and the desert made it seem even hotter. Eastern Oregon and Washington contain some of the most desolate land in the nation. Little rain made it over the Cascades to this parched area. To Bill it looked like the end of the earth.
He found a rock to sit on and decided that shade was a luxury he was not going to enjoy. He spread out a blanket, sat down and unpacked his lunch. It was then that it hit him. He was really leaving home. Oh, he had been pretty independent during college and his folks were great in that they treated him differently after high school. This was different. This was real. He knew his sisters were already moving the rest of his stuff out and redecorating his room. He was surprised that he cried and cried. He slowly rewrapped the chicken, gulped down the coke, and got back into the Dodge.
Noon gave way to afternoon. One mile gave way to another and the land looked as uninviting as ever. Bill had planned to pull off the road, throw out a blanket, and sleep by the roadside. As he looked around at the large expanse of nothing he told himself he would drive until he dropped before he would stop in this expanse of nothing.