Image by Gundula Vogel from Pixabay
84-year-old Selene Slocum-Lofton sat over her morning coffee and added just a drop of cream – the still-steady hands provided just what was wanted, just as they maintained their grip on her being Lofton County, VA's only female tycoon.
Nonetheless that morning, Mrs. Slocum-Lofton felt her age and the weight of family tradition as the holidays approached – and then decided to control the controllables. One did not go from being a millionaire businessman's widow to a billionaire by continuing to make bad investments.
Mrs. Slocum-Lofton shed a tear, remembering her beloved husband Aaron, and knowing how disappointed he would have been had he known how his nieces and nephews were living. His widow had maintained his tradition of the Christmas morning coffee party, but was tired of spending $100,000 for relatives to show up hungover and complaining.
Mrs. Slocum-Lofton had also outlived her only daughter, Sarah, but not Sarah's children. She turned on her cell phone and called the younger of her two favorite people in the world.
Retired army colonel H.F. Lee was just turning off Zoom from a virtual board meeting for the Lofton Trust when his cell phone rang.
“Good morning, Henry.”
“Grandmother!”
“You've been telling me the truth about what the family coffee party has become.”
“I have been praying, especially since this year it is a severe risk to your life, that you would realize that, Grandmother.”
“We're doing something different for 2020, Henry. I need the name of a local charity doing good work during this pandemic while under-funded. After all, not even the Lofton Trust can do everything.”
“I was just thinking of the the Lofton County Emergency Fund – we at the Lofton Trust literally cannot get money to them fast enough, and the volunteers keep working even though half of them are out of work. We have them up for an emergency grant in February, but we cannot do it sooner.”
“Get my business manager the names and addresses of all the fund's board members and staffers. Problem solved.”
Mr. Sheldon Green got up on Wednesday, Dec. 23 feeling more like Festivus than Christmas, needing something like an aluminum pole to pull up on to get out of bed. He and his family were living off savings, and Mrs. Green had put her foot down because by virtue of Mr. Green's title as executive director, their family could not receive any help from the Lofton County Emergency Fund.
“You're not going to bankrupt us over a title, Sheldon. I will leave you.”
But it wasn't about the title. Lofton County was mostly rural, and poor, and it was winter. The Emergency Fund was keeping heat and lights on and food and medicine in people's households. However, Mrs. Green had a point: Mr. Green had to put his own family first. So, he just kept praying and telling his wife: “If we get to January 1 and things are not resolved, I will resign.”
Then, Mr. Green's doorbell rang, and then his phone would not stop ringing. Every person who worked for the Emergency Fund had received a delivery of Zoom instructions and a stack of boxes as high as they were tall, full of coffee and cocoa blends and coffee candies and magnificent pastries and fruits and nuts – things you would expect a billionaire tycoon to have, because –.
“Because y'all are working harder than I am,” Mrs. Selene Slocum-Lofton said on the Zoom, “and you deserve the best. Welcome to the Aaron Slocum-Lofton Memorial "Christmas with Coffee" Party!”
Shocked faces filled the screen as the billionaire, fabulous in her green and pearls, read the names, titles, and duties of everyone with the fund and thanked them personally for their work in Lofton County.
Tears and smiles and wonder were all around by the time Mrs. Slocum-Lofton got down to the business.
“Mr. Sheldon Green, as soon as you send my business manager the appropriate instructions, the Lofton County Emergency Fund will receive my donation of $10 million. That should hold the fund over until the Lofton Trust can add to your funding. I am also aware that all of you have families of your own, and if you will look in the box of candied coffee beans, you will find a Christmas card and gift from me that may help, just a little.”
Mrs. Green did what half the people on the Zoom call did – she went and got that box out of the stack and got it open, and there was a card addressed to her husband.
“Happy Holidays to all of you,” the old tycoon purred. “I'm going to have my coffee and favorite pastries now, and I invite you to join me.”
Mr. Green opened the card, and there was Selene Slocum-Lofton's personal check for $100,000 – and the chat for the Zoom soon confirmed that everyone at the party had received the same amount.
Mr. Green suddenly needed that Festivus pole to hold on to, but his wife and children held him up, and his wife said to him, “I'm sorry, Sheldon – I didn't understand you were working to get this kind of support for us as you were for everyone else.”
“I didn't know either, Carla, but I told you that God would see and bless us. I didn't know this was it, but I knew I had to keep going.”
“You were right, and I'm sorry.”
“Apology accepted. Let's have some coffee, and chocolate for the kids.”
The first annual Aaron Slocum-Lofton Memorial "Christmas with Coffee" Party was a smashing success that would be felt by many families across Lofton County!
That night, Mrs. Slocum-Lofton smiled in her sleep, seeing her beloved Aaron smiling in her dreams.