Join Aaron as he unravels a tale where a simple piece of candy, the fate of a childhood friend, and a life-saving event take an unexpected turn.
*Today's story features guest art by Jade Kruyne & Gage Spehar
Jade’s illustration is featured on all major podcast apps where you listen to 7MS & Gage’s can be seen below!
Jade's work on Instagram @bunny3holland
Gage's work on Instagram @snotrocket1944
Art by Gage Spehar
Listen Free: | Apple Podcasts | Pandora | Spotify |
Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato
Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional vocals: Cori Birce
Art: Pete Whitehead
Original Music: thomas j. duke
Transcript
Aaron Calafato: It was dusk, and I stood in front of his grave. And my wife, Cori, who was next to me, asked, "Is this the first time that you visited?" And I said, "Yeah. This is the first time." And all I could think about to myself was, why did it take me so long to visit and say goodbye? Well, there's an answer to that and a story behind this right after the break.
Cori Birce: You're listening to 7 Minute Stories with Aaron Calafato. This is season 4.
Aaron Calafato: Not many people had my back in 3rd grade, but Alex did. I was going through a tough time; I had just switched schools. My parents had gone through a divorce. I was angry all the time, getting in fights, starting fights, finishing fights, getting picked on, picking on people. I had a Napoleon complex, but with all these flaws, you know who was in my corner? Alex. When I fought, win or lose, Alex was in my corner, walking home with me after school. Alex was there. He just took me in, didn't judge, and we became fast friends, sort of like outsiders wearing our jean jackets, walking home from school.
Now, Alex was a little rough around the edges. He was tall, charismatic, had spiked blonde hair, and a facetious smile. He just had this cool factor, like something from the movies. But he was into things he shouldn't have been in 3rd grade; he smoked two packs of Camel cigarettes a day. I'm walking home with this guy, imagine this image: a 3rd grader smoking two packs of Camels a day. He was just like that.
I remember we walked home from school one day, went to my house, and we're playing basketball. We're starving; my mom's not home yet. There's not a lot of food in the house, but I remember we had a bag of Japanese candy. See, my mom taught English at a university, and she would make friends with people all over the world. There was this family from Japan that would send us little gifts every year, and we would do the same for them. It was really amazing. You know, at the time, we didn't have Amazon. You couldn't just go online and buy something anywhere in the world. So when you got a package, like we did from Japan with the cool writing and these treats that you've never seen before, it was like getting a gift from another world. It was like getting a gift from heaven. These candies were circular discs, all different types of colors, beautifully wrapped. And when you eat them, it was a sugary floral essence that's hard to describe. Now I only had one bag of these a year, so I tried to savor them, but we were starving. And I must have really liked them because I didn't share these candies. You know, you get one bag a year. You can't be sharing these candies with everybody. But I gave him a few, and I had a few to sustain us till my mom got home. And we went back outside to play some basketball.
So we're out there shooting jump shots, and Alex comes down awkwardly and starts grabbing his neck and making a sound. And I start freaking out, and I realize that he's choking. He had one of the Japanese candies, and it's now in his throat, and I didn't know what to do. I just started working on instinct, and I just remember a scene from the movie Mrs. Doubtfire, the choking scene. And I just start lifting him up as hard as I can and dropping him down and lifting him up and dropping him down. And on the third time, he drops down on his feet, and I hear a pop, whoosh, and a ping. The pop was the candy getting dislodged from his throat. The whoosh was the air getting back into his lungs. And the ping was from the candy that shot across the yard and hit the grill. It was almost like a spiritual gong sound. And he looked at me, and he was like, "Dude, you just saved my life?" I was like, "I did." He goes, "Yeah. Thank you."
And I felt, and we both did, very strange in that moment. Something had been changed. The tapestry of the future had been shifted. And I think he felt lucky, and I felt lucky to be there. And we just kept playing basketball.
So the years go on, and our friendship becomes closer because of this. But Alex goes from being a little rough around the edges to just diving into some waters that I didn't want to get into. It went from, you know, Camel cigarettes to harder drugs. Look, D.A.R.E. worked on me as a kid. I just said no. I remember the commercial, "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs." I didn't want my brain to be a scrambled egg. And one day we were walking home from school, and he said, "Hey, come over to my house." There were some older girls there; there were drugs, and I stood there at that crossroads. It was like a Hallmark movie moment, and I really considered going with him because of his friendship and his loyalty. I didn't want to let him down. But I also knew there was something inside me that just didn't want to go down that road. And I said, "No, man. I can't go to your house today."
And really, in young person language, that meant we were having a friend breakup. And after that day, we didn't hang out anymore. There was no animosity. It just was. And the next few years, throughout high school, I just followed his life from afar, and he did the same.
I graduated high school. So did he. I went to college. He stayed in town. Years go by. And I get a phone call from my mom. And she said, "Did you hear about Alex?" I said, "No." She said, "He got in a terrible car accident. There were drugs involved, and something happened to him, like, brain damage." I said, "Really?" My heart sank. But I just put it in the back of my mind and went forward in my life.
A few years later, I get another call from my mom. I was out in New York. And she said, "Did you hear about Alex?" I said, "No. What happened now?" And she said, "He's gone." I said, "He's gone?" She said, "He passed away."
The circumstances were sort of shrouded in mystery, but I knew what had happened. And I couldn't help but think about that day playing basketball when he was choking. And he got this second chance at life, you know? And I didn't think much about it. Besides the pain, I felt I didn't think much about it or do anything with that for years, years up until this past year where my wife Cori said, "Hey, have you visited his grave?" And I said, "No, I haven't." Cori went to high school with us too. And she said, "Well, why don't you visit it?" I was like, "Okay."
So I went there, and I stood in front of his grave. And the feeling I had initially was frustration. It's kind of like that line from A Bronx Tale, "There's nothing worse in life than wasted talent." I felt that. And then that gave way to something different, something that told me to look at myself, the fact that I hadn't visited, that I hadn't said goodbye, that I hadn't prayed for him. And in fact, that I was being extremely judgmental of how his life went when he first met me. He didn't judge me at all. He just took me in.
So I ended up telling him I was sorry. And I realized the reason why it had taken me so long to visit Alex's grave. And that's because the longer that I waited, the harder it was for me to say that I was sorry. I got back in the car with Cori, and I said, "Can you look up on Amazon and try to find these Japanese candies I had as a kid?" She's like, "Japanese candies?" I said, "Yeah." She said, "Why?" I said, "Because I can't stop thinking about them. And they are like a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing."
