Monday, November 26, 2012

The Folded Napkin...A Truckers Story

This story is SO sweet. I read it on Facebook, and it brought me to tears. I love my brother, and I hope that when he starts working (probably pretty soon!!) people are this nice to him, and respect him! :) ENJOY! {I know it's kinda long, but it is a quick read}
 
 I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counselor assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy. But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and w...
asn't sure I wanted one. I wasn't sure how my customers would react to Stevie. He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Downs Syndrome.

I wasn't worried about most of my trucker customers because truckers don't generally care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade. The four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy college kids traveling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded "truck stop germ" the pairs of white-shirted business men on expense accounts who think every truck stop waitress wants to be flirted with. I knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.

I shouldn't have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck stop mascot. After that, I really didn't care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread crumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done with the table.

Our only problem was persuading him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus dishes and glasses onto cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met.

Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated surgeries for cancer. They lived on their Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from the truck stop. Their social worker, who stopped to check on him every so often, admitted they had fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him was probably the difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home. That's why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work.

He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Downs Syndrome often have heart problems at an early age so this wasn't unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months.

A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery, and doing fine. Frannie, the head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news. Bell Ringer, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of this 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table. Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Belle Ringer a withering look.

He grinned. "OK, Frannie, what was that all about?" he asked.

"We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay."

"I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?"

Frannie quickly told Bell Ringer and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie's surgery, then sighed: "Yeah, I'm glad he is going to be OK," she said. "But I don't know how he and his Mom are going to handle all the bills. From what I hear, they're barely getting by as it is." Belle Ringer nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables.

Since I hadn't had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie and really didn't want to replace him, the girls were busing their own tables that day until we decided what to do. After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand and a funny look on her face.

"What's up?" I asked.

"I didn't get that table where Bell Ringer and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pony Pete and Tony Tipper were sitting there when I got back to clean it off," she said. "This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup."

She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 bills fell onto my desk when I opened it. On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed "Something For Stevie.

Pony Pete asked me what that was all about," she said, "so I told him about Stevie and his Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this." She handed me another paper napkin that had "Something For Stevie" scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds.

Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply: "truckers."

That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to work. His placement worker said he's been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn't matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy.

I arranged to have his mother bring him to work. I then met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back. Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn't stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting.

"Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast," I said. I took him and his mother by their arms. "Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate you coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me!"

I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the room. I could feel and hear the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the procession. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins.

"First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess," I said. I tried to sound stern. Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had "Something for Stevie" printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table.

Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each with his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to his mother.

"There's more than $10,000 in cash and checks on table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems. "Happy Thanksgiving,"

Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a few tears, as well. But you know what's funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a big, big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the table. Best worker I ever hired.
 
 
Here are some pics of MY sweet brother!
 
 Little baby Parks!
 At conference! :)
Isn't he just so handsome?! I really can't believe how big he is! But he's such a stud! :)

Monday, November 12, 2012

Love and Gratitude

 It snows in Utah. A lot. And it is cold.
I miss Arizona. And it's warmth, and its NOT dangerous sidewalks/roads, and its trees that don't dump snow on you.
Today was our last FHE before Thanksgiving, so we did a "thankful" activity.
I made one of these for everyone, and then started the chain with why I was thankful for each of them.  Then they all wrote why they were thankful for eachother and created the chains.  It was a fun activity, and it helped  me to look deeper into some of those "kids" I go to school with! 
 
 
And I have two real quick stories if you choose to continue reading.
 
Story #1 takes place yesterday, Sunday 11/11/12:
 It was cold. And snowy. And I woke up on the wrong side of the bed--I'm not really sure why, but I just wasn't feeling very happy.  So, I went to church, and saved two seats for Hanna and Sarah--but they didn't get my text, so they came in and sat in the back.  Well, everyone else filed in to the building (we meet in an auditorium in the JKB) and I ended up sitting in the 3rd row, basically alone. 5 empty seats on either side of me.  And at first it made me kinda sad, but then it was like. Whatever, I'm a big girl.  So I just paid attention to the talks.  And then after the first 2 talks, we had a congregational hymn (which I may add, are definitely my LEAST favorite things. Ever.) And all of a sudden, this awesome boy in my ward got up from his seat a few rows back, walked in front of the ward, and came and sat down right next to me.  Lemme tell ya--I got really choked up.  Because at that moment I felt Heavenly Father's love overwhelm me, and a feeling of belonging came over me.  At BYU it is SO easy to feel lost, and forgotten, and like no one cares about you because you are away from home, and your family, and everyone is looking out for themselves.  But in that moment I was reminded that I am never alone!
 
Story #2 takes place tonight, Monday 11/12/12:
FHE mom is a hard calling.  It feels like you can't please everyone, and it is a little {okay. a lot} stressful for me, because let's face it, I'm a people pleaser.  Anyway, today as I posted earlier, we did our gratitude chains, and some of the guys felt a little "jipped" on what I wrote on their papers--let me explain.  Writing to girls is easy, and it is okay to say how much you love them and appreciate them because, well, they are girls.  Writing to boys CAN be easy, if you know them well, or if you like them as more than a friend.  Well, these guys in my group are all outstanding and they all make me laugh, and they all have insanely awesome personalities, and they all have really positive attitudes, even when our activities are lame.  They come and make it fun.  And I really love that about all of them.  SO that's what I was thinking when I wrote on most of their papers--but I guess when they read it that it came off as a "cop-out" for having nothing else to say.   When in all reality, it was just the truth!  But I could tell they were a little upset, and that made me feel like I had ruined our whole FHE, and I was just feeling a little down, because I had spent a lot of time trying to make the papers cute--and I am just not crafty, and it was frustrating me, and I have been feeling super homesick, because I only have 8 days til I get to go home, and I just want to be there already!  Anyway, at the end of FHE I was cleaning up, and one of the boys in my group came up and said "Thanks mom for the awesome activity" and then gave me a hug.  He then called everyone over, and we ended up in this huge group hug.  {funny side-note, the quote "Get in tighter! I want her to throw up! It'll show how much we love her!" or something to that effect might have been used} Anyway, none of them would know that that was a nightly occurance at the Bradshaw home, and it again made me feel of the untainted, constant, and overwhelming love of my Heavenly Father.
 
The church is true. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ live.  They hear our prayers, and they answer them.  They love us with a perfect love that is incomprehensible to us, but I love being able to have little glimpses of it in my life.  I am so thankful for the trials in my life that help me draw closer to my Savior, and I am thankful for the reminders that I am not alone, and that I am loved!
 
Happy November!