and went into the hall to offer assistance.
An elderly woman had fallen in the hallway. Jim helped a couple of nurses get her onto a cart and take her to the radiology department to get x-rays of her hips, which were hurting her.
By the time Jim helped get the woman back into her bed, it was almost seven o’clock in the evening. The evening supervisor thanked Jim for staying and helping them. It was so late, and in his rush to get home, Jim forgot his backpack, which he left in Mr. Crawford’s room.
Later that evening, Mr. Crawford noticed that Jim had forgotten his backpack in all the excitement. He was anxious to see how the story ended. Even though he was still weak from his chemo treatment that afternoon, he got out of bed, found the manuscript and climbed back into bed. Then, he took his reading glasses out of the drawer in his bedside table (where they had always been. He just liked hearing Jim read the story.)
During the next hour, Mr. Crawford’s eyes were glued to the manuscript. He had never read a western novel as good as ‘Frontier Justice’, before. Toward the end of the book, the story took an unexpected climactic turn that led to a violent ending. In the final chapter, Sam Miller and the rest of the Circle-X outfit made a cattle drive into Missouri, to ship some beef out east. In Jefferson City, Sam found his father in a saloon. It was then that Buck discovered the real reason that Sam wanted to find him. Sam wanted to seek revenge against his father for deserting his wife and seven children and taking every cent that they had. Before Buck could stop him, Sam challenged his father to a gunfight. Sam fired all six bullets into his father and then he took another gun and kept shooting into the lifeless body lying on the floor.
Bill Crawford was shocked by all of the violence and wondered how a high school teacher could write such a violent ending. As he closed the manuscript, he noticed the title page and the dedication page. The manuscript had not been written by Jim’s teacher, but by Jim Holden, himself. The book was dedicated to Jim’s mother; “To my mother, who was been both mother and father to me for most of my life.”
That night, Bill did not get much sleep. He was thinking about the story and wondered what had happened to Jim to make him so angry inside, to write such a violent ending.
On Sunday morning, after church, Jim realized that he had left his backpack in Mr. Crawford’s room. He drove to the hospital to retrieve it.
When Jim walked into Mr. Crawford’s room, Bill sat up and asked Jim to stay for a while.
Bill asked Jim about his family. Jim told Bill all about his mother. When he finished speaking, Bill asked him about his father.
Jim’s face suddenly became serious and he looked angry. “I don’t have a father,” he said. “As far as I am concerned, he is dead and if I ever do meet up with him, he will wish he was dead.”
“Please don’t get angry with me, Jim” said Bill, “but, I but I read the rest of ‘your’ manuscript.
I saw a lot of anger in the last several pages. Would you like to talk about it?”
“No, I would not!” said Jim. It’s complicated and personal.” Bill persisted and would not give up. He kept urging Jim to tell him what he was so angry about.
Finally, Jim blew up. “Okay, fine,” he said, you want to know why I am so angry? I’ll tell you why.”
“When I was four years old, my dad left us. He cleared out our checking and savings accounts and disappeared. No note, no nothing. We lost our house and moved to Phoenix where my mom was offered a job.”
“It’s been twelve years,” said Jim, “can’t you just let it go?”
“Well, that’s hard to do when I am constantly reminded of him,” said Jim. “At least once a month, my mother cries herself to sleep, thinking of him. She never stopped loving him. She blames herself. She thinks it is her fault that he left us. When I hear her crying, I just want to kill him for all of the pain and heartache he has caused my mother.”
By this time, Jim’s voice had gotten louder and his body was shaking with clenched fists. Bill got out of bed, walked over to Jim and wrapped his around the boy. Jim tried to pull away, but Bill held tight.
Then, twelve years worth of anger came pouring out in the form of tears. Jim started to cry: “Why did he leave us? What did we do wrong? Why didn’t he want us anymore? Why did he stop loving us? I hate him so much.”
As the tears poured out, Jim started to let go of his anger that he had kept hidden for so many years. Twelve years of anger, frustration, and hatred were released. Bill continued to hold Jim and he let him cry until he could not cry anymore.
Then, they sat down and Bill began telling his own story. “When I was a young boy, I had an alcoholic father. When he was drinking, he became very violent. He beat my mother and occasionally, he beat me as well. I hated him more than anything or anyone else in my life.”
“When I turned eighteen, I moved out of his house, but I couldn’t let go of that hatred. Gradually, that hate began to change me. I was passed over for promotions at work because of anger issues,”
“I fell in love with a beautiful woman named Carol, whom I had met through mutual friends in Phoenix. We got married just before my thirty-third birthday. Four years later, we were blessed with a beautiful daughter who we named Sarah.”
“As Sarah got older, I found myself becoming angry very easily, when my wife and daughter didn’t do what I wanted them to do.”
“I came to a major crossroads in my life, when Sarah was six years old. Carol was out shopping, while Sarah and I stayed at home. Sarah kept pestering me to play with her, while I was doing paperwork for my job.”
“Finally, I just lost control. I lifted my daughter up off the floor and started to squeeze and shake her very hard. If I hadn’t snapped out of it when I did, I would have killed her.”
“That’s when I got really scared. I saw a look of fear in my daughter’s eyes that day that I had never seen before. It reminded me of how I felt around my father. I realized that I had become just like my father. I realized that I was a time bomb that could go off at any time. I knew that it was too dangerous for me to stay in the house any longer. So, I left.”
“I arranged for money to be sent to them each month, and I never contacted them again. They never knew where I was living. I figured that it was the only way that I could keep them safe.” I traveled all over the country and did not come back to Phoenix until six months ago, when I found out that I had Leukemia.
“I left nine years ago. I have not seen or talked with them since then. Over the years, I have received a lot of counseling that has me deal with my anger and I learned to let go of my hate that I felt for my father.”
“When I got sick with Leukemia last year, I figured that it was God’s way of punishing me for the way I treated my family.”
“Jim, don’t let the hatred for your father ruin your life like it did mine. Let go of the anger and hate. It is an unhealthy tumor that will eat away at you from the inside.”
Jim told Mr. Crawford that he would try to let go of the anger.
Then, on a more positive note, Bill asked Jim if he could hold onto the story for a while. Jim told him to keep it, as he had the original file in his computer at home.
That evening, when Jim got home, he thought a lot about what Mr. Crawford had said. He also thought about Mr. Crawford’s wife and daughter. Jim wondered if they still lived in Phoenix. After hearing Bill’s story, Jim felt sorry for him. He did not think that the man should die alone without his family.
Over the next few evenings, Jim searched phone directories and the internet, looking for a Carol Crawford living in Phoenix. On Wednesday evening, Jim found a Carol and Sarah Crawford both living at the same address in Phoenix. Jim knew that the address was in the Camelback High School district. He searched the school’s website and found an article that mentioned a sophomore named Carol Crawford who was on the swim team.
Jim
realized that she was Mr. Crawford’s daughter. He wrote down the address and told his mother that he was going out for a little while. Jim realized that he needed to talk to Sarah and her mother in person. What he had to tell them, he could not say over the telephone.
When Jim arrived at the Crawford residence, he parked his truck in front of their house and slowly walked up the path to the porch. Jim stood on the porch for several minutes, trying to work up the courage, and then he took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
The door opened and Jim stood face to face with a girl about fifteen, whom he assumed was Sarah. She was about five foot seven, with short auburn hair, green eyes and plenty of freckles. When he looked into her eyes, he could see the resemblance to her father.
“Are you Sarah Crawford?” he asked her. When she said yes, Jim told her that he needed to talk to her and her mother.
Mrs. Crawford came to the door, invited Jim into the house, and asked, “What can we do for you?”
Jim introduced himself and then turning to Sarah, he said; “I have some news about your father; William Crawford.”
Mrs. Crawford asked Jim to leave immediately, but Sarah wanted to hear what he had to say.
“Your father is a patient at St. Joseph Medical Center, on the Oncology floor. He has Leukemia,” said Jim. “Over the past few weeks, I have spent some time with him.