I had a small adventure, The Other Day…, and you won’t believe the ending of this situation. I lived through it, and I still can’t believe how it turned out. All I can tell you while sitting here writing this is that I have finally brought closure, of sorts, to a situation that I didn’t think, at the time, would ever be settled in my family’s favor.
This story actually starts back in 2011. After our daughter passed away, we were encouraged to see a lawyer, if only to stop the insurance company’s constant phone calls to me at my job. In order to settle our daughter’s estate, we were asked if we could supply the law firm with some personal things that would allow them to be able to identify with our daughter. Of course, my wife and I were only too happy to share articles and photos of our daughter as she was growing up. Once the hearing was over and our little girl’s estate was finally settled, they returned everything back to us.
Years later, I started an untitled book about our daughter, which I still haven’t gotten very far with. It’s about dealing with the loss of a child. I started looking for certain pictures that I wanted to use, not only in the book, but also to motivate myself to write the book. You see, to me, my daughter was a “looker”, and her eyes could get me to do anything. I grabbed all the boxes of pictures that we have and could not find the 8×10 photograph that I was actually looking for. That picture was not anywhere to be found. I asked my wife if there was somewhere I could look that I hadn’t already looked. If you knew me, you would understand that finding stuff is not my strong suit. However, it is one of my wife’s superpowers.
There was so much going on in our lives, at the time, we forgot about the photos. So, about a year ago, we pulled all those pictures out because my son was looking for something. That reminded me about looking for that 8×10 photo. My wife, Carolyn, mentioned that maybe we should call our lawyers and see if they still had it. I brought up the fact that I thought they had given us back everything because I remembered going to pick it up. She responded, “If the lawyers don’t have it, then we’ve lost it.” Well, you can imagine how I felt. I would not even consider the fact that we had lost a picture of our daughter.
Recently, I had a reason to email our former lawyer about another issue I was having. On a Saturday morning, I received a call from the wonderful woman who handled our original case. We discussed my issue with the photographs. I asked her if there was any chance they had some of our pictures left over from our daughter’s case. She told me she didn’t think there was; however, she would look.
Well, The Other Day…I went downtown to the post office. I have a post office box, though I never get any personal correspondence from anyone. I do, however, get plenty of Busy Beaver home improvement advertisements, so it’s not a wasted trip. Anyway, while I’m there, my phone rings. It’s our former attorney, and she informed me that she had, in fact, found the pictures we were looking for. I was extremely happy. What was even better was she told me that they had moved their law offices, and it was just down the street from where I was standing. I’m thinking it was meant to be, right? After all, their offices were maybe 500 steps from where I was standing. I couldn’t believe my good luck. But, not so fast there, Jim. Now it’s time to tell you “The Rest of the Story”, as the great broadcaster Paul Harvey used to say.
I had parked my car in front of the Post Office. There was a sign facing my car that said, “20-minute parking only”. The sign and the post office were on the left side of the road. I thought it was perfectly legal to park my car in the direction it was in, and I could see the law office from where I was standing. Even though I am 63 years old and hobbled by an arthritic knee, I was walking toward the building at a brisk pace. Then, a man in a very large city truck caught my attention. As he climbed out of his truck, he said, “Is that your car parked there?” I said that it was, and continued to explain I was going to the legal building right over there. He explained to me, “Well, OK, but if you leave it there and the police see it, it’s a $185.00 fine for being parked illegally.”
I questioned him, “Why would they have a sign facing in that direction if it wasn’t legal for me to park there?” He replied, “You can go ahead and leave it there if you want, but don’t be surprised if you get a ticket.”
Now, I am a legal kind of guy, and all I really wanted was to get my daughter’s pictures. I didn’t want any trouble. So, I hobbled back and moved my car and actually parked it closer to the law office. But, now I had another problem. There was a parking meter, and I had no money for the meter. My wife always has money for the meter in her car, but I wasn’t in her car. I had no quarters, and I didn’t see any stores where I could go and get change. I was in a “proverbial pickle.” I chose to risk not putting money in the meter. I walked as fast as I could down to the law building and found the office, which was on the second floor. I walked in wearing a huge grin because I was going to get my pictures back, but I was in a hurry. So what happens? The receptionist asked me to ” have a seat” while she went and got our former lawyer. I do as she says, though I can hear the time ticking away.
The lawyer comes out all smiles and hands me an envelope and, I swear, it was an Indiana Jones moment. I had found my hidden treasure. When I opened the envelope, there was the picture I had been hunting for, after all these years. The photo shows our daughter, when she is about two years old, holding a rose. Folks, let me tell ya, I was in heaven! Our lawyer asked about my wife, as she always does, and I told her. Then, I explained about the parking situation and the fact that I had to get back to my car.
By the time I had waddled back to my car, there was a man standing behind my car, getting the license plate number. I waved to him as he started to move to the front of the car. He had his pad in his hand. I said, “Please, allow me to explain why I didn’t put any money in the meter.” So, I was standing there, giving him a soliloquy about my adventure that went on longer than it needed to.
He says to me, “This is your car, here?” I told him that it was. He comes back with, “You made it back just in time.” I informed him that I couldn’t find any quarters to put in the meter. He responded with, “I get that a lot!”
I could hardly believe that my car had almost been ticketed twice in a matter of a few minutes. I decided that I needed to get out of there before anything else happened. I quickly got into my car and waited for the traffic to go past, and then I drove home. But, not before calling my wife on my hands free device and telling her everything I just told you. However, I didn’t tell her what I am now going to tell you. Once I got home, I entered my house and immediately opened the envelope. I took out all the pictures that I was given. I started smiling at the sight of my little girl, but then, the moment got to me, and I began to cry. Our baby girl was finally home at last. I felt that our family had been blessed. I now had closure in reference to the pictures.
So, what started over eight years ago, now ends with a rather unbelievable ending. It was an adventure getting to that point on that particular day, but you know what? That’s kind of how things go around the Crosby house. One minute everything’s in chaos, and the next, we come out smelling like a rose. Hey, does that sound like things that go on in your household? I thought it might. Until next time, MUH!!
