Carl had to wait until everyone left the house. That was a challenge.
Avery was the first to head out to the car; he was excited to go and since it was his turn to pick out the Christmas tree, he was more than ready to go.
His body, however, betrayed him and he had to run back to the house, knocking frantically on the door for Carl to open it, and then with a "move please!" command, passed by his father and headed to the bathroom. The door closed and sounds associated with using the bathroom quickly commenced.
Carl stood there at the doorway for his son to finish up. The flush and then the water from the sink started and stopped. The door opened and a slower but still enthused Avery emerged, fast-walking his way to the back door where his dad was standing.
"You sure you don't want to go, Dad?"
"Surprise me, son..." Carl spoke, smiling.
"Okay, Bye."
With that, his son joined his daughter and wife in the SUV and off they went in search of the tree.
Once the car passed the driveway and made its way down the road, Carl knew that the coast was clear. He walked back to the back of the house and opened the door to the basement. Carl snuck quietly down the basement stairs. He went to the back shelving and reached behind the boxes of Christmas ornaments.
Carefully he pulled an old large cigar box out and opened it. He found a chair and sat down as he looked around, and then down into the opened box.
He reached in, touching each of the small nativity scene items stored inside. There were the animals -- a sheep, donkey, two camels and a cow. The two shepherds, each holding a curved pole -- a crook. There were the Three Wise Men, each looking like a nontraditional Saint Nick. There were Mary, Joesph and the baby Jesus. He unwrapped each one from their newspaper and examined them. No mice or other animals nibbled at them. He sat them on the floor together.
Then he reached in and unwrapped the manger. Carl started to well up -- he has done so every year since, well, the year the nativity scene was given to him along with the story behind the small scene.
Uncle Edgar never believed in Christmas. The younger brother of James, Carl's father, Edgar didn't believe in a God or Jehovah or Moses or any other "made up character who existed only to take our money...", he was fond of saying. Edgar lived a tough life, unlike his older brother. In and out of various prisons for mostly petty things, Edgar had a police record and hung around with thugs who preyed on old people.
A woman was found gagged, raped and stabbed. Edgar was the last to be around the woman, and because of his record and because Edgar was stubborn about asking for help to defend himself, he ended up going to jail for 20 years. While in jail, Edgar was approached by prisoners wanting to convert him.
"Convert to what -- your Jesus? Your Allah? Go away, leave me alone. I don't believe in any of that garbage! You want to convert me -- convert me into a man on parole!", Edgar stated.
"I didn't kill anyone, and I certainly wouldn't want to rape anyone..." He soon realized that those words -- those phrases -- sound like everyone else's reason why they should not be in jail. He stopped trying to explain his way out of jail -- or explaining anything else for that matter. After a while, the other prisoners no longer talked with him -- they had nothing to talk about in common with the man, who sat most days in his cell or stood on the railing outside his cell.
Edgar had dreams -- his biggest dream, besides that of leaving prison, was to travel around the nation in a RV. He would work small jobs for gas and food money, but other than that, it would be him and the road. He had other dreams as well...he wanted to have what his older brother had -- a job, a wife, a child, a dog and a cat.
Because he was a "career criminal", Edgar had to spend the majority of the time in jail. He viewed it as punishment for all of the stealing, looting and car thefts he did in his younger days. Upon his release, he found work at a truck stop, cooking for truckers who came through on their way to and from various locations in the state. On occasion, Edgar emerged from the kitchen and would stand or sit with some of the truckers as they told road stories or traffic conditions or both. Edgar drank in their conversations.
One of the truckers told Edgar about seeing an "angel" off the side of a highway, assisting a driver who, in the deep winter they were having one year, lost control of his car and ended in a ditch. The other truckers all chimed in about seeing that same angel at around that same place on the roadway.
Edgar, not a believer in such things, laughed and teased the truckers as they told their "angel stories" to each other. One trucker, Wayne, took Edgar to task.
"How can all of us -- we don't know each other -- how can we all tell the same story in such detail -- and you don't believe us?" he voiced, slamming his ceramic coffee mug down on the counter. "Just because you don't have faith in anything don't mean it's not true !"
"Oh yeah", replied Edgar, "tell us about the time you saw that Santa Clause fella, or better yet, tell us about Jesus and the raindeer and all of that crap. I tell you...it's all a bunch of crap!"
"I'm not much of a Christian man...", Wayne cooled down and lowered his voice in the direction of the cook. "But I'm telling you that we didn't make this up. We -- I -- saw this angel along 60 and you don't have to believe it. I just know what I know..."
"And if I drove out there I'll see this angel too, right?"
"I don't know. Maybe. It was snowing. It was dark. Mile marker 79." With that, Wayne paid for his food and drink, got off the stool and with a tug of his hat, wished everyone "A safe Christmas, everyone!" and left the dining area of the truck stop.
"Yeah. Angels. Sure." Edgar stated, as he went back to the kitchen area to do something he knows about -- cooking.
Two weeks passed, and Wayne has not shown up as he usually does. One afternoon, Edgar asked one of the other truckers if he had seen Wayne and his truck along the roadways.
"Wayne died. Didn't you...sorry...I guess you wouldn't know that."
"Sorry to hear that. What happened?"
"Someone robbed his family, raped and stabbed his wife and killed the kids and him. Burned the house and his truck," the trucker spoke. "The story was that the man came in looking for money and Christmas presents, and the wife thought it was Wayne doing Santa Claus. The man raped Wayne's wife, and then stabbed her. He then went after Wayne and the kids, and killed all of them with a gun before he burned the house and Wayne's truck."
"Did they find the man?" Edgar spoke.
"Yeah. They found him on Highway 60...he ate the gun but before he died, he told the paramedics that he saw...you're not gonna believe this, I don't... but they say that he said that there was an angel beside him in the car."
Edgar just stood there.
"You okay, buddy? Sorry that I scared you with this news. I was listening to Trucker radio and they said that they think that this was the same guy who killed some woman years back -- and that the police was looking for some man who was accused and imprisoned with the first crime so that they can let him know he wasn't their man...but they can't find him."
Not getting a response from Edgar, the trucker slipped a five under his glass and said, "Guess I've got to get going... sorry for spreading the bad news..." and he left.
Edgar finally placed everything into place.
"Hey Sam!! What's the weather like out there??" Edgar removed his apron and looked at the other cook.
"I've got to go somewhere. Can you cover for me? Should be back in a few hours..." Edgar added as he grabbed his car keys and reached for his jacket.
"Aw Edgar...you can take all of the time you want...I'll be here..." Sam spoke. "As far as the weather, I heard that we're under a snow watch or something...be careful on the road!!"
"I will...", Edgar was now wearing his heavy jacket and a baseball hat as he moved toward the back door and the employee parking area. He then turned around and went back into the truck stop and grabbed a state road map and poured himself a large cup of coffee. "Put it on my tab, Wendy..." he told the clerk as he exited the truck stop.
Sitting in his car, letting it warm the engine as well as the inside, Edgar flipped the overhead light on and looked at the highway map.
State Highway 60 starts near the small town of Wabasha, makes its way westward to Zumbrota, continues westward to Faribault, and then continues westward to Skyline, where the truck stop was located. From there, the two lane highway becomes four lane -- two in each direction -- as it makes it way southward toward Interstate 90 and then the state line. He would have to go south.
The snow did not start really falling until after Edgar made it down past Madelia. The road started to get a little more slick and Edgar slowed his travel down.
"Ninety-nine," he was saying aloud to himself, looking at the mile markers. The radio was announcing the road conditions, and then as he approached the 84th mile marker, he felt the car slide.
He jerked the steering wheel to maintain the car on the road and the car took off to the other side of the roadway and then back onto the roadway. Edgar finally was able to get the car steady enough to rest off the road.
"Whew! Thought I was a goner ..." Edgar said to himself. He looked out the front window. Blackness. He turned on his turn signals and moved slowly back onto the highway and then he saw a bright light coming his way.
"Turn your damned lights down!" Edgar yelled in the direction of the light, clicking his high and low beams to signal that they have to check their lights. The light was not coming from the roadway but from a billboard.
The billboard had some of its bulbs out but enough were working -- and working well -- so as to make an outline...
Then, he saw the car. Turned on its side and away from the highway. If Edgar did not look over to the right, looking at the billboard and then away from the bright lights, he would not have seen the car. He pulled the car again to the side, turned on his emergency flashers, and got out of the car and ran around the back and then down the hill to the car, still running and still with their windshield wipers going.
A woman was still belted up inside, and Edgar tried to ask her if she was okay. Finally he convinced the woman to roll the window down.
"Can you turn the music off!! Can you undo the seat belt? Are you okay?" he asked, reaching in to turn the engine off.
"I think so...that angel said not to worry, that someone would come and get me." She reached for the knob of her radio but when Edgar turned the engine off, everything shut off.
"What angel? The one on the billboard?" Edgar asked, assisting the woman through the window and then holding her as she stood weakly.
"Is it just you or should I be looking for someone else? Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine. Just a little bruised up. It's just me. No WAIT!! There's a box in the car...I need that box! Shoe box, Merkins!" The lady pointed with her hand to the backseat of her car.
"Okay, you make your way to my car up there, and I'll find the box and bring it with. My name's Edgar."
"Grace." She moved carefully up the side of the ravine and to the running blinking car.
Edgar peered back into the car and spotted the box. He grabbed the box, and made his way up the ravine side to the driver's side.
Inside, Edgar gave the cardboard shoebox to the woman and then turned the heater up while warming his hands over two of the vents. He then turned the other vent so it would warm the woman up.
"How long were you down there?"
"I don't know. I was listening to the radio -- Away in a Manger was playing -- and the next thing I know I was sliding off the road and into the ravine. Then the car turned on its side and I screamed. Then the angel told me "It'll be okay...someone will be along soon to see after you."
"An angel, huh?"
"Yeah. Don't you believe in angels? I just know what I know. Mind if I have some of your coffee?"
"I don't...oh yeah, help yourself. I forgot that I had it in the car...it's probably cold by now." Grace grabbed the coffee and placed the small opening to her mouth. Not scalding hot, but warm enough.
"It's warm. Good enough for me," Grace stated, holding the cup in her hands.
After about three more miles down the road, Edgar asked "Where am I taking you?"
"St. James."
Edgar drove the two of them through the snow storm to the small town of St. James. Grace gave directions to a bed and breakfast place off of the downtown main street.
"Thank you. I think you saved my life. I think that if you did not see me down there, I would have eventually have died...the car would have stopped and there I would be." She bent over and kissed Edgar on the cheek. "Where do you work?"
"Truck stop near 'Kato off of 60", Edgar smiled and said. He added, "Come in and the food's on me..."
"Maybe once I stop shaking and my car's fixed, I can stop in and take you up on that." She got out of the car, waved and went quickly to the front door.
Edgar, seeing that the woman was okay, slowly backed out and drove back to Mankato and back to work.
The day after, he discovered the shoebox and thought since it was that important to Grace, that he should deliver it back to her. He drove back to St. Peter to the bed and breakfast place he dropped her off at.
"I'm sorry..." the lady owning the bed and breakfast stated, "but we haven't had anyone to stay here for some time!"
"I was just here a couple of nights before," Edgar stated. "Are you SURE that a woman named Grace was not staying here. Maybe she was staying with someone else?"
"You're more than welcome to come in and look around, but I'd be tickled to no end if we had a boarder to stay with us. Things have been really tight for us...and we would have welcomed Jesus if He came to visit us!!", she smiled.
The place did look like nobody has visited it.
"What's in the box?", the woman asked.
"I wasn't nosy enough to look in it," Edgar stated. I'll go get it...maybe it'll give a clue or something..."
Edgar went to his car, grabbed the box, and brought it to the woman. "Come in...no sense us standing around out here in the cold air..." She opened the door and Edgar walked in, followed by the woman holding the shoebox.
Edgar stood as the woman placed the shoebox on a table, and then went to warm some coffee for the two of them. Edgar told the woman about finding Grace on the highway, rescuing her and her box, and bringing her back, he thought, to her home.
The woman brought two cups of coffee and a small copper pot to the table. She only commented "Uh-huh," as Edgar told what he did afterward -- to drive back to the truck stop and back to work.
Edgar drank his coffee, his story complete.
"Oh my," she said, finding a chair to sit down while looking into the shoebox.
"What?"
"It's a nativity scene...well...parts of it..."
Edgar looked in the box. Wrapped in newspaper pages, were various elements in a Christmas nativity scene. He saw many of them over the years, lit by bulbs and lights, most of them in front of churches.
"There's something missing," the woman spoke.
Edgar watched as the woman got up, walked to a closet and reached in to find a hat box labeled "Christmas".
She brought it to the place she was sitting. Opening the circular box, she reached in and found the item she was looking for.
"She must have lost it. Would you be so kind as to grab today's paper and bring it to me please?" She pointed to a stack of papers in a corner.
Edgar walked over to where the woman was pointing, grabbed the top paper, and brought it over to her. She tore the front page off, wrapping the barn in the paper, and placing the item into the box with the other items. She inspected again to insure that nothing else was missing -- and to find the owner's name.
"Nothing in here tells me where she lives or her name."
"Why don't you keep it? You know, I'm just not into all the Christmas stuff," Edgar said.
"NO, YOU hold onto this. Didn't you say that this Grace woman knows where you work at? That she was going to come by and eat at your truck stop? She wouldn't know where to find this if I had it...no, you keep it, Son."
Edgar asked "and you are POSITIVE that Grace was not staying here at all in the last couple of weeks?"
"You are more than welcome to look around if you don't believe me...but we -- my husband and I -- have not had anyone to stay here since well before Thanksgiving."
"I believe you...", Edgar stated, reluctantly. "I just know what I know..." He then stopped himself. That trucker...what was his name...Wayne. He said the same words to me. Grace too.
"I'll hold onto this until Grace comes to the truck stop to pick it up," Edgar stated. "If by chance she comes by, can you please tell her that I have it and will hold it for her?" The woman nodded her head.
He thanked the woman for her hospitality and the coffee, and left holding the shoebox and its contents and drove it and himself back to the truck stop.
A month after the visit in St. James, Edgar was visited by the State Patrol. They provided a written apology to him signed by the Governor, along with a full pardon and a check for several thousand dollars. His criminal record was clean and all of his past crimes were removed from his record.
He quit the truck stop and left his brother's mailing address as a contact in case Grace would come looking for her shoebox.
Edgar, barely able to do so because of his age, joined the Minnesota Army Guard, as his only skill sets were cooking and stealing. He trained to become a food service specialist. At the training school, he met Karen and the two of them fell in love. He married her and adopted the little boy she had her parents take care of until she finished military training. She became pregnant with a little girl, and Edgar convinced Karen to bring a dog and a cat into their home.
Edgar never saw Grace again; and before he left to go to Kosovo with his Guard unit, he gave the shoebox to his older brother James and explained how he came to it.
"I know some day she's gonna find me and want this back; no telling where the Army will send me, so I'm giving it to you for safe keeping. Please take care of it...this may be the only thing the woman has..."
"Besides, you know me...I was never that big on Christmas back then. I just know what I know..." His brother promised to keep it and to give it to Grace if by some strange chance she came around.
During combat operations in which vehicles had to cross a river, Edgar's truck was shot and exploded. Sergeant Edgar Tompkins along with three other Soldiers perished.
Carl wiped his eyes with his hands, and placed the manger back into the box. He placed the cigar box -- the old shoebox became beaten up and James, Carl's dad, thought a more sturdy box be used for the scene items -- back behind the tree decorations, lights and tree topper.
James died from lung cancer eight years back.
"I'm going to have to tell Avery about this," Carl said to himself, grabbing the large box and taking it to the living room, awaiting for the tree Avery was going to get.
Yes, quite a story. But you sparked a story of my own… A very true story.
My uncle was no angel. He managed to build a small trucking company in the little town of Withee, Wisconsin. But, by 1962, it was failing along with his second marriage. In March, when his father, my grandfather was near death, he told my aunt that he was going to Minnesota to buy corn to bring back to Wisconsin to sell to farmers. He took $2000 cash to buy the corn.
A few days later, his truck was found parked on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi at Wabasha with a single set of tracks in the light snow leading to the highway. He had acquired a new identity and met up with a suspected missing barmaid. He left five children and she left five children. They drove to California in her car and disappeared. The FBI wouldn't help my aunt find him because he hadn't crossed state lines and the local police had nothing to go by.
In 2007, a private investigator hired by her children, quickly found her through her Social Security number, dead in 2005, in Boise where she had lived with my uncle in retirement until 1995 when he died. They left their house to their neighbor and the private investigator found pictures of their life together and copies of the local Wisconsin paper that my aunt often reported what was happening with the children.
He Keeps Me is a devotional journey of revelation and insight birthed out of prayer.Searching the Word of God revealed the many ways that He has kept me and continues to keep me. Each day is an opportunity to recognize that God is mindful of you, eve
