I've written a lot of horror stories this year, mainly because I always enjoy a good scary story, and that's the direction my muse often takes me. But as you know, I've also written five faith-based novels. My Christianity is a very vital part - the MOST vital part - of who I am. And at this time of year, we focus on being grateful to God for His many blessings. So I decided to write a story about the whole theme of giving thanks - and in the process, to revisit some of my all-time favorite characters.
For those of you who enjoyed my "Capri Team" novels, this story takes place about three years after the events chronicled in THE GNOSTIC LIBRARY. Josh and Isabella are living in rural Oklahoma, raising their children, and dealing with the sad reality of slowly losing Joshua's beloved father, Ben Parker, to Alzheimer's disease. It is Thanksgiving, and Josh is having a very hard time being grateful this year. . .
GRATITUDE
A Short Story by
Lewis Smith
“Is someone there?” a querulous voice asked from the hospital bed.
“It’s me, Dad,” Joshua Parker replied.
“Tom? What are you doing here?” Ben Parker asked his son.
“No, Dad, it’s not Tom. Uncle Tom is back up in Colorado, getting his ranch ready for the winter. It’s Joshua, your son,” Josh replied patiently. These days, it seemed to take Ben two or three tries to recognize even close family.
“Joshua!” the old man said, struggling to focus his failing eyes. “When did you get so tall, son?”
“I’m no taller, Dad, you’re just lying down,” Parker sighed.
“Oh, you’re right!” Ben smiled, and in that smile, Josh saw the ghost of the man his father had been just a few short years ago. “Sorry, son, I dreamed we were fishing. You were a little boy again. Where’s your mother?”
“She’s in the kitchen,” Josh said. “She’ll have your breakfast in a bit. That boot slows her down a little bit.”
“She always did look good in cowboy boots,” Ben said with a smile.
Josh just shook his head. Louise Parker had fallen on the front walk during the last ice storm of winter and broken her foot. She’d been in an orthopedic boot for several weeks, something that Ben had a hard time remembering.
“I’m here, sweetheart,” his mom’s voice came from behind him. Louise stood in the doorway, holding a plate with scrambled eggs, toast, and a sausage patty already neatly cut into bite-sized pieces. “Are you hungry?”
Ben’s eyes lit up. His wife was the only person he still recognized immediately, and despite the slow crumbling of his mind, the love that radiated from his eyes was pure and full of joy.
“Thanks, love!” he said. “I’m starved. What is that thing on your foot?”
“I broke my foot, sweetie, remember?” she said, as she had every morning for the last five weeks.
“That’s right! Joshua should have told me,” he said.
She sat on the edge of the bed and handed Ben his fork, and he began to eat slowly and carefully. Later in the day his hands would begin shaking and he would need help to eat, but most mornings, he was still usually able to feed himself. Joshua wondered how much longer that would last.
Joshua was one of the most famous archeologists in the world, author of multiple books, and a sought-after speaker at scientific seminars and religious venues alike. He had a beautiful Italian wife, two lovely children, and was financially well-off, but his father’s struggle with Alzheimer’s had tested his faith beyond anything he ever thought possible. Ben Parker had been a pastor, mentor, and inspiration to thousands of people during his fifty years as a gospel minister. He had performed three thousand weddings and over four thousand funeral services; he had counseled people out of suicide, extramarital affairs, and drug addiction. For half a century the love of God had shown through him like a beacon, drawing people towards faith. If anyone ever deserved the right to enjoy a peaceful retirement and live out his golden years in good health, it was Benjamin Parker.
Joshua’s belief in God was unshakable – he had seen and experienced the Divine in more ways than he could count – yet he did not understand why his Dad had been afflicted with this terrible disease of the mind after a life devoted to God’s service. And his inability to understand had left Josh bitter and angry with God for the first time in his life. He did his best to conceal that anger; to present himself to his wife, children, and friends as a steadfast man of faith. But it was still there, a festering wound in his soul that left him questioning everything he held sacred.
“Why don’t you head home for a bit, dear?” Louise asked him. “Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and it’s going to be a big day. The home health nurse should be here in the next few minutes, and I am sure Isabella could use a hand getting things ready. It sure was sweet of her to volunteer to cook the meal for us.”
“Well, you’ve got a lot more than Thanksgiving on your plate these days, Momma,” said Josh, kissing her cheek. He leaned forward and put his hand over Ben’s.
“I love you, Poppa Bear,” he said. “Be good to the nurse and Mom till tomorrow.”
“You should tell them to be good to me!” his father replied with a flash of his old wit. Josh hugged the old man close and the strode quickly from the room, dashing the tears from his eyes.
On the way home, he dialed his close friend and mentor, Dr. Luke Martens.
“Josh!” Martens’ voice boomed through the line. “Good to hear from you, young man!”
“Heya, Doc,” said Josh. “You and Alicia doing well?”
“She’s doing beautifully, and I’m managing,” Martens said. His wife Alicia was much younger than him and being a parent again in his fifties had taken a toll on the professor. “We’re having her whole family up for Thanksgiving, so I have to listen to my mother-in-law cluck about my age and health all day long. At least, her Dad and I can watch the Cowboys together and take turns cursing Jerry Jones.”
“As any true fans should,” Josh said. “It sounds like a good day to me.”
“How is your Dad?” Martens asked.
“Slipping away from us an inch at a time,” Josh said. “First he thinks I’m his brother, then he thinks I’m ten years old again.”
“It’s a hard thing to watch,” his friend said.
“It is just so damned unfair,” Josh said. “I have prayed about it, fretted about it, thought about it, and I still can’t make sense of it. If anyone deserved better of God, it’s my Pop. Why did this have to happen to him?”
“Remember what old Professor Rourke used to say?” Martens asked him.
“God is good, but God is also hard!” Josh quoted from memory. “It’s one thing to hear that as a twenty-year-old undergrad; it’s another to experience it as a nearly fifty-year-old man. I won’t lie to you, Luke – this is messing with my faith. It’s got me questioning things I never thought I’d question.”
“I don’t know that there is anything I can say that will lessen your burden, my brother,” said Luke. “Except to remind you that you are not bearing it alone.”
“I know that!” Josh said. “Mom and Isabella have done wonders, and even though the kids are little, they are still handling it all amazingly well.”
“That’s not what I mean, and I think you know it,” Martens told him. “God is there, too, walking beside you, bearing what you cannot bear yourself – whether you feel His presence or not.”
“I don’t!” Josh said, his voice breaking. “I don’t feel Him anymore, Luke, not even when I talk to Him. I feel more alone than I ever have in my life.”
“Your anger is blocking your ability to sense Him,” Luke said. “You have to place your Dad in His hands, Josh, instead of trying to carry him through this yourself. Ben gave his life to God long ago; now you have to honor the choice he made.”
“I’m trying,” Josh said. “It’s just heartbreaking to see him so frail, so confused. Instead of him dying all at once, I watch another little part of him die every day.”
“There will be no more pain, no more sickness, no more sorrow, and no more death, for the former things have passed away,” Luke said. “You believed that for all these years – and I think you still believe it, in your heart. Your mind has just gotten in the way.”
“I think it’s the other way around,” Josh said. “My heart tries to tell me the things I once believed are still true, and my mind wonders how that can be if God allows Dad to suffer like this.”
“Is he really suffering?” Martens asked him sharply. “Or are you?”
“Good point, Doc,” Josh said. “It’s me. I’m making this about me, and I shouldn’t - but it’s hard not to.”
“Holidays are hard when you know they could be the last one with someone you love,” his friend said. “Find the moments you can savor, and savor them, and try not to let those other moments get in the way. You know you and your family will be in my prayers.”
“Thanks, Luke,” Josh said. “That does help a bit. You’re a wiser man than me, and always have been.”
“That’s not saying too much though, is it?” Luke replied with a laugh. “Your Dad is wiser than both of us combined.”
“He certainly was,” Josh said. “And, maybe, in the ways that count, he still is. His memories may be dying, but he still seems to find some joy in each day.”
“Then you should, too. Take care, my friend. Alicia’s calling me, so I need to go,” Luke told him.
“Bye, Doc! Thanks for listening,” Josh said.
When he got home, the house was strangely silent except for some classic 80’s rock playing in the kitchen. Josh walked through the den, waiting to be pounced on by his son and daughter, but there was no sign of them. When he stepped into the kitchen, he found Isabella sitting at the table, staring out the window, tapping her fingers lightly in time to the music.
“Ciao, mi amor!” he said. “Where are the kids?”
“Duncan and Katherine took them to the lake for the afternoon,” she said. “Giuseppe and Simone were so excited to see them again, they decided to spend the day with them.”
“What can I do to help you get ready for tomorrow, then?” he asked.
“At the moment, not a thing,” she said. “I have all the groceries I need, the turkey is prepped and sitting in the roasting pan in the fridge – all I need to do is pop it in the oven in the morning. I thought you and I could snuggle up on the couch and watch one of your awful B-movies together, and then slow-dance to some 80’s rock until we think of something else to do.”
Josh took his wife in his arms and hugged her tight.
“You don’t know how much I needed something like this,” he said, fighting back the tears again.
“Of course I do, you silly man!” she whispered in his ear. “Why do you think I’m doing this? I know your Dad’s condition is eating at you night and day. Let me help you forget about things for a little while.”
Despite the sadness and anger that gnawed at his heart, Josh took a moment to thank God for giving him such a perfect wife. Then they settled in to watch TUCKER AND DALE VERSUS EVIL, one of his favorite films. It was a pleasant afternoon that did much to wash away the morning’s grief.
Around six that evening, Duncan and Katherine MacDonald came back with Joey and Simone. The two children were happy and worn out from chasing ducks, climbing trees, and skipping rocks along the lake shore, and stuffed full with pizza and ice cream on the way home. Isabella hustled them upstairs for their baths as they regaled her with stories of the day, leaving Josh to spend time with their friends.
Duncan MacDonald was a former Catholic priest who had left his calling to marry British archeologist Katherine Feezel after they survived a harrowing hostage ordeal in the hands of Islamic terrorists in Egypt three years earlier. Duncan had nearly died from the tortures inflicted on him, but Katherine had nursed him back to health. Despite turning seventy that summer, Duncan walked with a spring in his step and a twinkle in his eye these days.
“Well, lad,” he said, “how is your father? Will he be able to have dinner with us tomorrow?”
“Probably so,” Josh said. “He’ll be in a wheelchair – he can still walk short distances, but he is not very steady on his feet. I have to warn you, though, that he probably won’t know who you are.”
“Alzheimer’s is cruel,” Duncan said. “It’s a hard way for any man to go, especially someone as vigorous and smart as your da used to be.”
“Watching this is killing me,” Josh said softly. “Izzy’s been great, and Mom is a trooper, but the unfairness of it all eats at me. I would rather have seen him drop over with a stroke or heart attack ten years ago than watch him slowly lose his mind like this!”
“You know that I’m still a new Christian,” Katherine said, “but I know that even Jesus Himself questioned his Father’s will in Gethsemane. If there is one thing that you two have taught me, it is that God is big enough to handle our doubts and questions!”
“Physician, heal thyself, is it?” Josh asked. “Dad always said that walking the walk is a lot harder than talking the talk. It’s just never been this hard for me before. I’m afraid that if Dad’s ordeal is a test, he’s acing it and I’m flunking big time!”
“You’re doing as well as anyone could,” Duncan said, patting his younger friend on the shoulder. “It’s a heavy burden to bear.”
They talked back and forth for a few minutes longer, and Duncan began filling Joshua in on the work he was doing in Egypt, trying to salvage scrolls from a huge library of Gnostic materials that had been blown up with grenades by the terrorists who kidnapped him a few years before. Joshua was following him with great interest when his wife’s voice interrupted the conversation.
“Joshua, your children are wanting a bedtime story from their father,” Isabella said.
“Well, I guess another chapter of “The Hobbit” is in order then,” he said, excusing himself. After he left, Isabella shook her head.
“The kids never get tired of that one,” she told their guests.
“Nor should they,” said Katherine. “It’s a wonderful tale!”
“They had heard the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy read to them by the time Simone turned six,” Isabella said. “I thought the story was too complex for them to follow, but she and Giuseppe both can quote it chapter and verse!”
“That is good parenting,” Duncan said.
After regaling Joey and Simone with the story of Bilbo’s adventures with the giant spiders of Mirkwood, Josh rejoined the group. They visited for another hour or so, and then Duncan and Katherine, still jetlagged from their flight to the States, retired early. Josh and Isabella washed the dishes and got a few last-minute preparations for the next day’s cooking done, and then they went to bed themselves. But even as he lay there, his wife curled up by his side, Joshua kept seeing his father’s frail form lying in that hospital bed. Why, God? he thought over and over. Why?
The next day was a whirlwind of chopping, baking, mixing, and packing up dishes full of various meats and sides into the back of the minivan. Last of all, the twenty-pound turkey was positioned on a huge covered platter and loaded up, and then the Parker family headed out to Brother Ben’s house with Duncan and Katherine following closely behind. It had been a busy morning, but Isabella was a superb organizer, and the van was filled with the delicious aromas of Thanksgiving dinner on the move.
Once they arrived at his parents’ house, Josh carried in the platter with the turkey, while Isabella organized the kids and the MacDonalds into a caravan of cuisine that saw the entire dinner brought inside in just one trip, with nothing spoiled, spilled, or broken. Josh had once called her a “kitchen Mussolini” (once only; Isabella didn’t find that joke a bit funny!), because when his wife organized a dinner, it was always on time and perfectly done. By noon the entire family and guests were seated around the table, including Tina Moore, the Home Health nurse who had made the mistake of telling Louise she couldn’t travel out of state to eat Thanksgiving dinner with her family.
Louise and Tina retreated to the bedroom to get Ben into his wheelchair and bring him out to eat. Duncan hadn’t been able to speak to his old friend because Ben had been asleep when they arrived, and he hurried over to the chair to see him when he was wheeled in.
“Ben, you old Baptist heretic, how are you?” he boomed, his Scottish accent coming through strong – as it usually did when he was happy or angry.
The elder Parker looked at him closely, his brow furrowed, a slight smile on his face. Finally, he spoke.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “Do I know you?”
MacDonald didn’t miss a beat.
“Know me? I’m yer cousin, Angus McGillicuddy, from the Clan McGillicuddy!” he said. “Don’t you remember us hunting Nazis together in Argentina in the sixties?”
“I don’t have a cousin named Angus!” Parker said with a sudden, huge smile breaking out. “Your name is MacDonald – Duncan MacDonald! Shame on you, lying to a sick man!”
“Well, it got you to remember my name, didn’t it?” Duncan said with a wink and a grin. “It is good to see you, old friend.”
“I’ve missed you, old man!” Parker said. “When I remembered you, I missed you.”
“Well, let’s enjoy this day together, then,” MacDonald said, taking the wheelchair from Louise and pushing his old friend up to the table.
After a gracious benediction from Duncan, the next half hour consisted mainly of people eating with bits of conversation sprinkled in here and there. The turkey was moist and delicious, the stuffing rich and well-flavored, and all the sides were done to perfection. After everyone had enjoyed their firsts and seconds, and the dessert plates were passed out, Louise stood up.
“Now comes my favorite family tradition!” she said. “I know some folks think it is silly and cliched, but I want every one of us to go around the table and say what we are thankful for! After all, isn’t that what this holiday is all about?”
She was looking at Josh as she said it, and he groaned and got to his feet.
“I’m grateful to be here with you all, I’m grateful for the delicious meal. I am thankful that I was raised by the best parents on earth, and I am glad the Cowboys are playing a REALLY bad team this afternoon!” he said.
Louise smiled and clapped her hands, and then spoke for herself.
“I’m grateful for my handsome, famous son, for my wonderful husband, and to God who blessed me with both of them!” she said. “And for my delightful Italian daughter-in-law who is as good in the kitchen as she is on an archeological dig!”
“I want to say something,” came a querulous voice from the end of the table. Ben Parker grabbed the handles of his wheelchair and slowly stood up. He then placed his hands on the table for balance, his arthritic knuckles turning white with the effort of holding himself upright.
“First of all, I am grateful to God Almighty for blessing me with a beautiful wife and a good son,” he said. “And I am thankful for all my friends and family, even the ones that I can’t remember anymore. I am thankful for the gift of life, which I have been blessed with now for these eighty-five years.”
His family applauded, but he slapped the table with one hand to make them stop.
“I’m not done yet,” he said. “There is one more thing I want to say, and I want all of you – especially you, Joshua – to hear this. I am also deeply grateful to God for blessing me with Alzheimer’s.”
“Dad!” Josh exclaimed. “You don’t mean that!”
“Yes, I do, son,” Parker said. “Now listen to me! I am having a moment of clarity here, and I don’t get many of those anymore. I know this has been hard for you. You’ve been mad at God on my behalf for years now, and I want you to quit it! This is an ordeal for all of you, I know. But for me, it’s not a bad thing.”
He paused a moment, and Josh saw a single tear roll down his father’s cheek.
“I can’t remember my mother and father,” Ben said. “I know they existed, after all, because I’m here. But I can’t recall their faces, or their voices, or even their names – and I haven’t been able to for some time now. But you know what else I don’t remember? The pain of losing them. I am eighty-five years old, son. I’ve lost so many friends over the years. But the pain of those losses is now gone forever. Every day I lose my memories of all the hurts, all the betrayals, all the disappointments, and all the suffering my long life has witnessed. But what I haven’t lost is the love of my family. I still feel the love radiating from my sweet wife every single day, the steadfast love of my good and decent son, and the beautiful, innocent love of my grandchildren. I still feel the affection from all my friends who still visit. Even when I forget their names, I feel their love. This disease is going to continue to take things from me, I know. And there is nothing any of us can do to stop that. But the one thing it will never take from me is your love. When it finally runs its course and I go to my home in glory, my soul will be carried to heaven by the love that all of you have for me. For an old man, that is not a bad way to go. So yes, I’m grateful for this thing you see as an undeserved evil. Because it’s let me see your love all the more clearly as everything else fades away.”
He sighed deeply, and then slowly sat back down in his wheelchair, slumping a little from the physical exertion of such a long declaration. But then a twinkle came into his eye and he spoke again.
“I’m also grateful for this magnificent bird what’s-her-name baked for us!” he said, and the whole table dissolved in laughter.
A half hour later, the meal done, Joshua stood on the deck overlooking the meadow below his parents’ ranch house, tears streaming down his face. He heard someone come up behind him, but he wasn’t sure who it was until Isabella’s voice whispered in his ear.
“Are you all right, my love?” she asked.
He turned to her, and she saw that the anger and bitterness that had lurked behind his gaze for the last two years was gone. There was still sorrow there, but she also saw real joy for the first time in a long time.
“He’s grateful for it,” Josh said. “Gratitude . . . it’s a hard thing, you know? To be grateful for the thing that is killing you. But if he can still find thankfulness in his heart, how can I do any less? Yes, I’m all right, Isabella. In fact, for the first time in a very long time, I am . . . grateful.”
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