Tribute

His name was Cody. He was eighteen years old. He lived in the neighboring community of Globe, another small mining town deep in the Superstition Wilderness. He was a high school senior. He had a job at the local Wendy's drive-in. He had a girl friend and the rest of his life ahead of him. He drove a small car and lost control of it on top of the mountain one Saturday night returning from Phoenix. His car swerved across the road and hit a semi-tractor truck and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

It's not a new story. It's a story that unfortunately gets retold each year in our communities across this land and fills us with sorrow. Cody's story, however, was still unfolding two weeks after the accident that took his life.

On Saturday afternoon, his friends and co-workers got together to honor his memory by holding a car wash and bake sale at the Wendy's where he was the cook. They wore bright red tee shirts with his picture emblazoned across the front, along with his name and his birth date and date he passed. High school kids manned buckets and hoses to wash cars against one wall of the Wendy's. Smaller kids held posters and signs on Highway 60 letting passersby know a car wash benefit was in progress. A teenaged boy sold nachos and hotdogs at the entrance to Wendy's. Someone's mother sat at a long table inside which was covered with homemade baked goods for sale. Another poster inside the Wendy's told Cody's story and there was a picture on the wall with him smiling down at his friends. A small donation jar stood on the counter where folks gave their orders.

The feeling in that place was alive with their love of the boy. Bill and I stopped in for a mid-afternoon lunch and were overwhelmed with the depth of humanity coming from all those red tee shirted clad folks. I read the poster and felt like bursting into tears. Sombody had done a great job summing up the life of this young man and sharing it with total strangers. While we stood and waited for our sandwiches to be made, the lights in the dining room shut off. Bill and I looked at each other, but said nothing. The electricity in the kitchen still hummed and workers went about their business. In less than a minute, the dining room lights flicked back on. We waited a few more minutes. Once again, the dining room lights flicked off. A manager, standing at the counter, turned and muttered something and went to the backroom. A few seconds later, the lights came back on.

Bill turned to me and raised his eyebrows. "You think he's here?"

I nodded. "He sure appears to be."

Our sandwiches came and we took them into the dining room and sat down. Midway through them, the lights went off again. The mother who was selling the bake goods looked up at another red shirted "Cody" volunteer lady who just entered. "That da fourth time dim lights go off!" she shouted. Then she nodded emphatically and crossed herself.

I met Bill's eyes. "Others know he's here too, don't they? They're not afraid to acknowledge it, are they?"

"He sure is. He must be real impressed with how many people turned out for the benefit."

"When he was alive, I wonder if he knew how many people loved him?" I asked. "This is pretty impressive."

We finished our meal and went outside. A young boy stood at one end of the Wendy's, wagging his sign about the car wash. We nodded that we were going to get in line to get one. His face burst into a jubilant grin. We parked and walked over to a girl and young man collecting money for the car wash. As Bill jammed a twenty into the donation jar, I asked them, "You folks must have loved your friend a great deal."

The girl nodded. "We sure did. He was just the Best!"

I turned away, my eyes tearing up once again. I think he knew. I'm fairly sure he was there in spirit and just tickled by the outpouring of affection shown by his friends and co-workers. I hope he knew, before he passed, how important he was in his community. But if he didn't know it then, he surely knows it now, after the tribute his friends put on for him in Globe on Saturday.