Transition’s First Steps for Trevor
Understanding Grief
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Listen to Trevor’s story as you read it (below).
“I’ve got $3.84,” Trevor sheepishly told the fellow in a Hardee’s shirt behind the counter. “What can I buy for that?”
It was 2:30 in the afternoon. Trevor’s stomach felt hollow. He needed some cholesterol to keep him going.
The fellow’s name badge read, “Ned,” and it hung crooked from the pocket of his shirt, which was too big for his slender frame. He glanced awkwardly at Trevor and his walker, turned around and looked at the menu overhead. “Well, there’s the three 59-cent big cheeseburger,” he said in a squeaky voice. “And, that’s about all … You got a debit or credit card?’”
“No. They’re in my wife’s purse, and she’s not here anymore.”
Garish menu boards always seemed confusing to Trevor.
“What’s a carton of white milk?”
“98 cents”
“How about a small Coke?” he mumbled, thinking that would be cheaper.
“89 cents.”
“Just give me the cheeseburger,” Trevor finally said.
“What does he want?” Trevor overheard Gert quietly ask Ned as she suddenly appeared behind the counter. She wore thick bifocals and a brown and orange cap over her gray hair.
“Cheeseburger and milk,” he whispered through the side of his mouth.”He’s only got three dollars and 84 cents.”
“Give it to him,” she ordered in a matronly manner.”I’ll pick up the difference.”
Ned slapped the pre-wrapped cheeseburger and the milk carton on a tray. Trevor gave him the $3.84 cents in change he had in the palm of his hand.
“I’ll bring it out to the table for you,” Gert offered. So Trevor shimmied behind his walker over to the nearest table and plopped down into the chair.
Gert came over to Trevor’s table with his tray. “Thank you,” Trevor said, trying to sound appreciative and intelligent at the same time.
“That’s OK,” she assured Trevor, speaking louder and more distinctly than she needed to. “You have a nice lunch now.”
She probably thought she understood Trevor’s situation, but she didn’t. For the first time in his life, the perception that Trevor, as an elder, didn’t have the financial resources for a decent meal had become a reality.
But financial stress was not the problem. He had left Mansfield that morning to have lunch with his son, Mike, near Columbus, OH, as a way to step out of the house for the first time on his own after Brenda, his wife of 54 years, died suddenly three weeks before.
Brenda always took care of the couple’s finances and carried the pair’s debit and credit cards in her purse. Since Trevor’s stroke four years earlier, it was always easier for her to pay whenever they bought anything.
It was sort of an unspoken agreement that he and Brenda had made after his stroke. He would still do the driving. She would continue to manage the couple’s finances. So, that morning Trevor completely forgot that their charge cards were still in Brenda’s purse – and her purse was still in their bedroom.
The issue didn’t come up during a drab lunch of nondescript salads with Mike, who paid the tab.
So, just 40 miles down the road, Trevor was hungry and had stopped for a quick sandwich -- only to discover on his second stop of the day that he had left home that morning without Brenda’s purse and with only three dollars cash in his billfold. A quick check of the usual places for random change in the car only yielded 84 cents.
Buoyed by the confidence he had enough to buy something to drink and a hamburger, he stopped at Hardee’s and found a disability parking stall conveniently located just outside of the front door.
Coming up short for cash hadn’t happened to Trevor before. He could finally see he was in a new stage in his life now that Brenda was gone.
For the moment, he amused himself in shallow victimhood. It was, after all, harmless.
Trevor left his tray at the table and went to the men’s room, hoping he could quietly sneak out afterwards without the employees seeing him.
He came out of the rest room, letting his walker slide silently on the floor, trying not to draw attention. But, he met Gert, mopping the floor with wide swipes, near the entrance. Ned was cleaning off the tables.
“Thanks again,” he said pleasantly, as walked stiffly toward the door.
“That’s OK,” Gert replied loudly.
Ned opened the door for him, and Trevor went out with extra difficulty. He folded his walker and climbed into his white Lexus.
As Trevor drove out of the parking lot, Gert and Ned were still standing there, watching him -- she with the mop in her hand and he with a stack of trays.
Five years later, Trevor chuckles about Gert and Ned and what they may have thought the day they “got taken” by an old man with a walker, no credit card, a bunch of change in his hand – and a white Lexus.
Here’s to mature-adult living!
Jim Hasse, ABC, GCDF retired, author of “52 Shades of Graying”
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I now understand how the death of someone close to you can “unfreeze” your everyday routine and “thought” processes.
When my mom died, I took an afternoon off to visit a couple of banks for refinancing my mortgage – something that was not all urgent at the time.
When my dad died, Pam and I had a long-established condo party at our place scheduled for a week after his funeral. We didn’t cancel it and strangely found ourselves not thinking about the event’s details. We just let it happen – not concerned about how clean our condo was or whether we had the right beverages or food.
The grieving process can play tricks on us all.
* What incident during a grieving process from the past do you now recall with some amusement?