I got a message today from a good friend who lives outside
of Dallas, Texas. We haven’t connected
in over three years but it was really nice to get a New Year’s shout out from
her. It led me to think about how many
coincidences and connections I have in my life that just drop in my lap when I
least expect it.
After my middle son, Matthew
was born and my oldest son, Ben was nicking on five, my wife, Karen, and I had
a long conversation and decided it was time for us to move out of the city to
the suburbs. We started looking at houses in the northwest that were close to
our parents, but couldn’t find one we liked.
One night when I came home late from work she came to me and said,
“Everyone is talking about us looking at Naperville.” I asked “Why? I used to live there. It’s got a college but it’s a one-horse
town.” She said, “I think it has changed
a lot since you lived there. It has over
100,000 people now and the schools and libraries are rated very high.” I had the next week off because of how much traveling
I’d been doing, so we went to Naperville to look at houses. During that week we found the perfect house
for us and we bought it. We have lived here now for more than eighteen years. In the first year we lived here, God gave me
the gift of a daughter, Meredith.
Matthew was three when we moved to into our house. As I say,
I traveled a lot in those days, sometimes for weeks upon weeks at a time. I was close to Ben but Karen wanted to make
sure I had some father-son bonding time
with Matthew, so she signed us up for a
weekly “Daddy-Son Night” at the community center. I made sure I was home and every Wednesday,
Matt and I would go sing and clap, listen to stories, crawl through tunnels and
split a $100,000 Dollar bar from the vending machine for the way home. I think he like playing with me but I also
think that that candy bar was his favorite part of the event.
The session was facilitated by an older woman named Miss
Rosie. She was very energetic and very
kind but there was something about Miss Rosie that perturbed me…and not in a
bad way. I just felt I knew her. After the second of three sessions I went up
to her and said, “Thank you. Matthew and I have been having a great time. We
don’t get this time a lot and it has been really wonderful.” She smiled and asked me my name. I told her
and then she asked me what I did for living.
I told her and then asked her the same questions. She said, “My name is
Rose Eiler. I just retired from teaching but I still wanted to work with kids,
so I do this.” I shook her hand and then
Matthew and I went home. When got there
Karen took upstairs for a clean-up and bed. She looked at me and asked,
“What’s on your mind?” I said, “I’m not sure, but I have to look for something
my mother gave me. I think I know exactly
where it is.”
The next time Matt I went visit Miss Rosie’s class, I
brought a gift. After class was over and
everyone left I gave Matthew a dollar for the vending machine and said, “I need
to talk to Miss Rosie for a minute.”
Without hesitation he took my buck and ran out down the hallway. I went to Miss Rosie and gave her what I had
brought in a gift bag because I wrap things for my life. She asked, “What is
this.” I said “Open it.” She did and
looked up at me with searching eyes. My
gift was a picture of the first kindergarten class she had taught in 1968. She asked, “Where did you get this?” I said,
“Out of my attic. Do you remember any of the kids in this picture?” She laughed and said, “You know there are so many kids that
come through your life when you’re a teacher but you always remember your first
class.” She started her finger across
all of the faces.“That’s Pete, who
lived above the hardware store; that’s sweet Jill who had the wishing well in
her yard, and that’s Denny, the monster who lied through his teeth all of the
time.”
I pointed to small, awkward child
in the photo. “Do you remember
him?” She laughed. “Yes I do. He was a
handful. He never wanted to play on the
playground just wanted to try to read books which he struggled with. He has a
very active imagination.” I asked “What
do you mean?” She said, “One time we had a tornado warning because one was
sighted close so we moved all of the kids into the hallway. After all was clear
he wouldn’t go home until his big sister, Missy, came to get him. He was
convinced that all of the houses had been blown to Oz and that when he went
home all he would see would be people climbing up ladders out of their
basements.“ We both laughed. I asked,
“Miss Rosie, what was his name?” She said I can’t remember his full name but I
remember it was strange and taken from his father. We all just called him
Little Tommy.” She paused for a minute,
looked up at me and said, “I imagine you don’t get called that anymore, do you?” I laughed.“How did you know it was
me?” She sighed."There was something about you that seemed so
familiar and it bothered me. Then when you took your glasses off to play with
Matthew in the tunnels, I knew who you were because you now look so much like
your dad.” I gave a kiss to Miss Rosie
on the cheek and promised that I would come by her house, the same one she
always lived in, for a visit sometime.
It was almost two years before I did that. One afternoon I
got done with a work meeting early and got home to Naperville in the afternoon.
I called Miss Rosie and asked her if I could stop by. She said yes and so I
walked to her house instead of taking the bus back to my neighborhood. When I got there she was in her yard pruning
some lilacs that lay across a white picket fence. I opened the gate and walked in. I said,”I
love the lilacs. They always make me think of my mom.” Miss Rosie smiled and kissed me on the cheek.
She said, “You know it is funny. Your Mom was always very involved in the
school and these were actually a gift to me. She brought them to me just before
you all moved to Florida. She couldn’t keep them and thought I might like
them.” That afternoon Rosie Eiler and I drank tea under the
big oak, talked about books and laughed a lot. That is until, Dahlia, the woman who
was taking care of Rosie came to fetch her for a nap. As I prepared to go she said, “I’m so glad
you came to visit, Little Tommy. Please
come again.”
That was the last time I saw her. I got very busy; she went into assisted
living, and then she passed before I could have tea with her again.
Fast forward. Three
years ago I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and stopped working in corporate
America. One of the things I wanted to
make sure I was doing, along with a lot of other things, was to keep moving, so
I started walking. I like mostly to walk
along the river but the other place I like to walk is in my old neighborhood in
the historic and college district of our town.
I always bring a camera because you never know what you might see.
One day I went into town and parked my crappy train car Kia,
which is sarcastically called “The Green Stallion,” on the street not far from
Miss Rosie’s old house. In those days I
was just starting to walk on a cane because I was dizzy a lot from adjusting to
the medicine. I walked up to Miss
Rosie’s house and there was a nice looking woman watering the flowers and
hedges. She was dressed in boots, cutoffs
and a light flannel shirt. I said, “Hi.” She barely looked up and said,
“Hello.” I said, “I used to know the
woman who used to live here. I know she’s gone, but I’m really happy you kept
the lilacs.” I could tell this woman was
wary of me. She kept working without
looking at me. She said, “We thought
about getting rid of them but my husband said they’re so deeply rooted, it would
be a pain. I think he actually likes them.” She was very perfunctory and obviously wanted me to go away. I kept my course. I said, “Um, maam, would you mind me coming in to take a picture of the lilacs? They’re kind of special to me.” She stopped, sized me up, and said, “Sure,
why not.” While I took my pictures she
stood right behind me with her arms crossed.
When I was done and walking out of the yard through the
gate, the woman asked me, “Are you from around here?” I said “Yes. Yes, I am. I live with my wife
and kids by 87th Street. A
long time ago I lived in the cottage by the college president’s house that is
now the campus radio station. We only lived there for a year or so before my
family got transferred to Florida.” She
screwed up her face in thought and I got nervous so I said, “Thank you very
much for letting me take the pictures.”
She very sternly said, “You’re welcome.” She walked up on to her back porch and I
went as fast as I could to my car to get away.
I wasn’t even ten steps away from the house when I heard
yelling. It was quiet at first and then louder. “Little Tommy...Little Tommy!”
I stopped and turned around. The woman in the boots was standing on her porch
yelling at me. I stayed where I was and
called back, “Excuse me?” She said
something else I couldn’t hear so I went back to the fence line. “She called
again, “Are you, Little Tommy?” I didn’t
know what to make of this. I called back, “Yes. Yes. I am. Who are you?” She took a deep breath and looked the most
relaxed she’d been since I showed up. “My name is Jillian Anderson. When you
knew me, my name was Jill Howe.” I
looked at the ground and thought, “Moses, is this really happening?” She started
down the sidewalk along the house, advancing on me. She spoke as she came.” Do you remember the
walks home, pitching pennies into the wishing well, the grilled cheese sandwiches
in the yard, walking with your mom down to the fountain, and holding hands at
parades because we were so afraid of the fire truck sirens? Do you remember any
of that?” I didn’t know what to do. It
seemed so surreal. Jill came busting
through the gate and when I really got a chance to look at her, I suddenly could
still see the six-year-old tomboy girl that once was my very best friend. I
smiled and teared up a little bit.
I said, “Of course, I remember all of it. You never forget
something like that.” Jill pressed herself up
on me, all bright and happy. She said, “I
don’t know anything about you and your life, why you walk on this cane. You
don’t know anything about me either, but I have a huge desire to hug you.” I
smiled again.“That’s OK. I’m pretty good with hugs.” As she wrapped me up in her arms, she
whispered in my ear. “I thought when you all moved to Florida I would never see
you again, and now here you are. I can’t wait to tell my daughters. We have
talked about those times a lot.” I held
her tight too and said, “We do the same.”
After our initial encounter Jill joined me on a lot of my
walks through town, or met me at the Starbucks, or on the patio at Quigley’s
Irish Pub. We caught up a lot and
renewed a friendship that had been dormant for more than forty years. Then her husband, a really bright and funny
guy, got transferred to Texas, right outside of Dallas. Time passed and as it happens “out of sight,
out of mind.” That is until today…
“Dear Little Tommy…
Happy New Year and
greetings from Texas! Hoping is all
going well with you and yours. Stay warm there in Naperville. I hear it is very
cold. Thinking about you and hoping we can connect when we come up next to see
the parents.
Your friend forever,
Jill
I don’t exactly know how or why I seem to fall into these
coincidences and connections, but I have to say I am not complaining about it
at all. Maybe fate or God or Karma has favored me and I get to have this gift and get to have
these moments which I really do cherish.
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