I saw him through the lobby window. Older. Thinner. Nervous.
He didn’t bring flowers.
“Dad,” he said, “we messed up. I… I need work.”
Turns out the money they took didn’t last. His wife left. His apartment was gone. He was sleeping on a friend’s couch. His sister hadn’t spoken to him in months.
I looked at him and felt something strange.
Not anger. Not vengeance.
Just clarity.
I brought him into the common room. Introduced him to Tony, Grace, Leonard. Showed him the packing table.
Then I handed him a Still Got It Co. shirt and said:
“We don’t give handouts here. But we do offer second chances.”
He blinked back tears and nodded.
He stayed.
He packed orders. Learned to screen print. Ate lunch with us every day. I never asked for an apology. He never gave one. We just worked.
And that was enough.
A New Kind of Family
Today, Room 214 still has that beige paint. But now there’s a corkboard on the wall filled with thank-you notes. A shelf of hand-made goods. A small, proud banner that says:
“We’re not done.”
Tony’s gone now. Passed in his sleep last fall. We added his name to our tag line.
“Made by someone the world forgot… but who still had more to give — and one hell of a sense of humor.”
We now employ 93 residents across five facilities. Every time an order ships, I imagine someone opening that package and realizing: there’s still magic in hands with wrinkles. Still brilliance in gray heads. Still love in voices that crack.
Epilogue
I’m not bitter. Not anymore.
What my children tried to throw away… became the very thing that saved me.
They thought they’d parked me in life’s waiting room.
But I was just getting started.
And if you’re reading this in a quiet room, thinking your story is done — I promise you: it’s not.
You still got it.
We all do.
