“A Medal for Hot Chocolate” by Ms. Sloan
“Ugghh,” I groaned as I rolled myself, clad in sweat pants and hair carelessly thrown in a messy bun, into Aunt Pat’s little old Toyota Corolla. “Where is my hot chocolate?”
“Nice to see you, too!” she chuckled.
Despitethe clear blue sky and beautiful colors of autumn around me, I couldn’t help but feel agitated. I didn’t know much about this event, this walk that I had been dragged to, for a sick little girl named Lizzie. We drove on, and I of course insisted – since this was such an inconvenience - that we listen to my favorite song, “Tearin’ Up My Heart” by the end-all-be-all of my existence: ‘N SYNC. Aunt Pat hummed along, even though she wasn’t sure of the words. Even in her late fifties, she managed to keep up with what was current. For the most part.
When we parked on a steep hill in Nutley, New Jersey, I saw hundreds of people milling around, all wearing shirts that said “Lizzie, We Got Your Back.”
“Don’t you even worry. I’ve got us covered!” Pat said excitedly as she handed me a navy blue Lizzie shirt with a fire department logo on the front.
“Great!” I muttered with as much fake enthusiasm as I could muster.
A buzz of excitement seemed to flow everywhere. Somehow, it only made me feel even more annoyed, because I really just wanted to get the day over with. The only reason I would ever wake up voluntarily on a Saturday morning was because Aunt Pat asked me to. She was always there for me. Take my school plays, for example. Even if there were nine performances, you could bet she’d be there at every single one, yelling embarrassingly loud from the front row.
We reached the start of the walk and got moving. And then, muchto my grumpy dismay, people proceeded to stop to say hello just about every three seconds. Teachers she’d worked with, students she’d had, and friends from town, everyone wanting to talk to me, “Pat’s niece!” My face felt like mush after so much polite smilingand small talk.
“Your aunt, she is the best,” a woman in a green Lizzie shirt said, putting her arm around her.
“Nope, you’re the best,” said my aunt.
My feet were throbbing and I could feel blisters forming on both of my heels – I scolded myself for not breaking in my new sneakers before wearing them that day. As I opened my mouth to start whining about how tired I still was, I noticed a group of people in neon pink shirts all huddled together at the finish line. People clapped for them and slapped them high fives as they passed by, but the pink shirts allstarted yelling and cheering when they saw us.
“You must be Erin!” a man yelled as he wrapped me in a huge hug. I wanted to die.
“Your aunt has done so much for our little girl,” insisted a woman at his left with tears in her eyes. “We are so grateful for her help in putting all this together. And we can’t believe that we’ve already exceeded our fundraising goal!”
“Oh?” I asked sheepishly “I didn’t realize!”
“We will be able to take care of Lizzie’s treatment for an entire year thanks to your aunt.” Lizzie’s dad put his arm around Aunt Pat’s shoulders.
“Oh, knock it off,” Pat teased,“Erin’s the real hero here, she woke up at 7:00 AM on a Saturday, can you believe that? We have a medal for her, right?”
Suddenly, I felt ashamed for being so grumpy that morning. “Well, you did promise me hot chocolate.”
I never had any idea of the number of people that Pat had rallied in support of Lizzie until that day. I didn’t know that Lizzie was the youngest person ever diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, or that she was not expected to live. And I definitely had no idea how much Pat was there for Lizzie’s family in their time of need. She was just humble in that way, and was always ready to make people smile – even under the toughest of circumstances.
It wasseveral years before I saw Lizzie again. She stopped by our shore house with her dad to say hello in August of 2015, all grown up and in middle school. We talked about Harry Potter for almost an hour. As we waved our arms around and shouted with nerdy excitement, I felt so grateful to have been given the chance to helpsave this warm, kind-hearted young adult. She hugged Pat before walking out the door, and so did her father before adding a “Love ya, Sloan.”
Then, on a cold day that February, as I busied myself with cleaning and this and that, my phone rang.
“Pat – is gone,” my mother’s voice cracked.
Kidney failure. She had died suddenly at 65. It had been a couple of weeks since I had seen her, but we had just spoken a couple of days before. A wave of shock hit me hard as I processed this news, and sat down in the middle of my living room floor. I was devastated.
The days that followed passed in a teary blur. On the day of her funeral, I didn’t pay much attention to details. I couldn’t remember all the names of the hundreds of people who came to pay their respects to my aunt. I don’t remember if I ate breakfast or what I wore. But I do remember that when I was on my way out of the church, I saw a familiar face sitting in the last pew.
“I’m so sorry,” whispered Lizzie with a small, sad wave and a tear dripping off the tip of her nose.
Outside, as we all gathered together, I thought about that autumn day at Lizzie’s walk, all those years ago. I thought about how Lizzie was alive thanks to the selfless acts of people like Aunt Pat. Some people boast their kindness by shouting it out to the world. Some people want medals just for showing up – with or without hot chocolate. But I have come to learn that the best people, the ones who can truly make a difference and touch people’s lives, work quietly. They offer hugs, smiles, and time with genuine selflessness. There will never be another Aunt Pat, but thanks to her the world has Lizzie, and I will continue to learn from the legacy of quiet selflessness that she has left behind.