The Box

 


  "What's this?" C asked. He was doing some cleaning in what we call the "music room" because we store our instruments in there. He was pointing at a brown wood box with a glass knob handle on it.
  I looked at the box. I knew where it came from.
  There was a customer at the pharmacy named Ted. He used to come around once a month to pick up his prescriptions. He'd tell us what he needed and then go to the deli to "get a piece of chicken". He was a very nice guy. He liked to talk to us. We got to know him pretty well. He enjoyed woodworking. He would get wood from places and use it to make all kinds of things. He would sell these items through local stores. It wasn't a huge source of income, but he kept him busy doing something he enjoyed.
  He stopped coming around after awhile. I didn't know what happened to him. I assumed that maybe he had moved or passed away.
  Many months later a woman came in to get some prescriptions for him, the woman was his daughter. Ted was still alive,but had developed some serious health problems which resulted in him being in the hospital for awhile and then in transitional care. He was home again but not able to get out. The health problems kept mounting. He'd get over something and then something else would happen. He got a bad case of shingles and it took him a long time to recover.
  One day he came back. He was a little thinner and a little weaker, but he still was the same cheerful guy that we knew and liked. He wasn't allowed to eat the chicken in the deli anymore because it was too greasy. He was still doing woodwork, but only small pieces. His family was afraid that he could hurt himself working on larger pieces.
  He started making decorative things. He brought something he'd made to show me. It was a wall hanging in the shape of a house. He had stained the wood and decorated it with seeds. Then he applied a coat of varnish on it to preserve the seeds and keep them in place. It was beautiful.
  For awhile he would come in with his daughter to pick up his medicine. He told me that he had stopped woodworking because his family was still concerned. I told him that he could take up knitting. He chuckled. Knitting is a woman's hobby.
  Then his daughter came in alone. She told me that her father had been diagnosed with lung cancer. It was advanced to the point where there was nothing they could do. Given his age and the state of his health treating it wasn't a good option. I know I started to tear up. Ted was such a nice man and had suffered so much already. His daughter told me that everyone she told about her father had reacted the way I did. She hadn't realized just how well liked her father was.
  He would still get medicine and his daughter would pick it up. One time she told me he was out in the car and I could say hi to him if I wanted. It was busy though and I couldn't leave the pharmacy. She understood.
  The next time she came in he was with her. He was pale and thinner than before, but his cheerful spirit was still there. I knelt by his wheelchair to talk to him. He told me that he had sold all his woodworking gear and all the things he'd made except one box. It was a wedding box. A wedding box is a box with a slot on the top so wedding guests could put their cards in at the reception. There was no slot in the box because he had been too sick to do it. It was the last thing he had made. He talked until I had to get back to work. Then he said, "Goodbye, I don't know if I'll see you again." I said, "I'll see you again. It may be someplace else, but I will see you again."
  A few weeks later his daughter came to the pharmacy. She was in tears. Ted was going downhill and it was painful to watch. I comforted her as best I could. I got her some tissues.
   A couple weeks later she came back and wanted to talk to me. I saw she had been crying and knew what was coming. We went to a hallway by the break room so we had a little privacy. She told me her father had passed away the day before. We both cried. When we stopped, she handed me a large plastic bag. "He wanted you to have this. He wanted to being it himself, but he was just too sick, " she said.
  I looked in the bag. It was the box. It was the last thing he had made. He wanted me to have it and his daughter had honored that wish. I was touched. I was speechless.
  His daughter left and I walked back to the pharmacy. I put the box near my coat. Then I leaned against a cabinet, put my hands over my face and cried a little bit. Even though I knew he had finished his work here and was no longer hurting or sick, I still felt bad. I couldn't believe that he had given me his last box.
  I took the box home and put it in the music room. I didn't know what to do with it. Then, one day, it hit me. I was crocheting granny shapes to use in a blanket. I could put my finished shapes in the box.  It seemed like the right thing to do. I would use it to store small finished yarn projects.
  Somehow, I think he'd be happy with that.......