by Glenn White
It’s been a year since ten-year-old Johnny died from cancer and Cindy finally musters the strength to go through her little boy’s room. Cindy feels exhausted from working the night shift as a waitress at the Last Chance truck stop. But she knows what she must do.
Cindy cracks open Johnny’s bedroom door and suddenly an empty place in her heart opens and she feels lonely. Johnny’s daddy is long gone, leaving them before Johnny got real sick. But she knows she must clean Johnny’s room and pack his clothes to give away to some other needy boy.
Cindy stands at the doorway looking at Johnny’s rumpled bed. She remembers the daily battles over making his bed before he went to school. This morning, those battles seem silly. In the middle of the bed, Cindy notices a crumpled brown paper bag. She tiptoes over to the bed and picks up the bag. On the front of the bag in red crayon is one word, PROMISES, written in Johnny’s block letter style with a smiley face for the letter O. Cindy opens the bag and looks inside to find Johnny’s collection of Valentine’s Day cards. The kind of cards kids give to each other that parents buy in boxes of 20 cards for $1.99 at WalMart.
Reaching in Johnny’s bag of promises, Cindy gently lifts out a cut-out heart with a picture of Spider Man on it that reads, “Spidey and I love you!” signed Billy. She plucks another card from the bag with a cartoon picture of a sheep that reads, “I’ll always love EWE” signed Brittany. Cindy sits for twenty minutes reading card after card until she reads every one. Then at the bottom of the bag she felt a small book and with two fingers she carefully removes the last item.
Her face flushes and tears roll down her cheeks when Cindy sees the little book. It’s a Gideon’s New Testament that Johnny’s daddy gave to him after coming back from one of his long haul trips. Johnny really couldn’t understand all the words in that little book but he treasured his daddy’s gift. And Cindy remembers Johnny putting his daddy’s gift in his lunch sack every morning before he went to school.
Cindy opens Johnny’s little book, it falls open to the Gospel of John and a small cut-out heart flutters to the floor. She picks it up and sees Johnny’s block letters on the card, “Jesus, thank you for your PROMISES” with a smiley face for the letter O.
Copyright 2004 Glenn White
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