Five Little Boys Asked Me for Help Buying Pokémon Cards Because They Couldn’t Afford Them

Five little boys walked up to me and asked if I’d buy them Pokémon cards because their dad had just passed away, and their mom couldn’t afford Christmas anymore.

The oldest was maybe ten, the youngest couldn’t have been more than five, and they stood there in mismatched coats that were too small, holding a single crumpled five-dollar bill between them like it was treasure.

I was just stopping for coffee on my way through town—this big scary biker covered in tattoos and leather—and these kids approached me like I was Santa Claus himself. What they didn’t know was that I’d buried my own son three months earlier, that I’d sold his Pokémon card collection to pay for the funeral, and that seeing those five hopeful faces was about to break me in ways I didn’t know I could still break.

“Mister,” the oldest one said, his voice shaky but brave, “we have five dollars. Pokémon cards are six dollars. Could you maybe give us one more dollar? We’ll pay you back. I promise.”

I looked down at these five boys, all with the same dark eyes, the same desperate hope on their faces. They were holding hands, the oldest gripping the youngest’s hand so tight his knuckles were white.

“Why Pokémon cards?” I asked, my voice rougher than I intended.

The second oldest spoke up. “Because Dad used to buy us one pack every Friday. After dinner. He’d let us open them together and see who got the best cards. It was our thing.”

“Dad passed away last month,” the middle child added matter-of-factly, the way kids do when they haven’t fully processed grief yet. “Car accident. Now Mom cries all the time and we don’t do Pokémon Fridays anymore.”

The fourth child tugged on my vest. “Mom said Christmas is canceled this year. She said we have to be big boys and understand that money is tight. But we saved our allowance from before Dad was gone. Five whole dollars.”

The youngest, who couldn’t have been more than four or five, held up the crumpled bill like an offering. “Please, mister biker? You look tough. Tough people can do anything.”

I had to turn away for a second. These kids had no idea they were gutting me. No idea that three months ago, I’d stood in a similar store, selling my son’s Pokémon collection because I couldn’t afford both the funeral and the headstone.

My boy, Marcus, had been eight when we lost him. Leukemia. We’d spent his last good months collecting Pokémon cards together, opening packs every Friday night, just like these kids’ dad had done. It was our thing too.

“What are your names?” I managed to ask.

“I’m DeShawn,” said the oldest. “This is Malik, Jerome, Isaiah, and that’s little Micah. We’re the Robinson brothers.”

“All five of you?” I asked.

They nodded in unison.

“Mom says we have to stick together now,” DeShawn explained. “Dad used to say brothers are forever. So we’re forever.”

Something inside me cracked wide open.

“How about this,” I said. “I’ll buy you the Pokémon cards. But you keep your five dollars. Deal?”

Five faces lit up like Christmas morning. “Really?!”

“Really. But I need you to help me pick them out. I don’t know anything about Pokémon.”

That was a lie. I knew everything about Pokémon. I’d memorized every card Marcus had ever wanted, every evolution, every rare holographic he dreamed of pulling from a pack.

We walked to the card section together—me and these five little boys who’d lost their dad—who were trying so hard to keep his memory alive with a five-dollar bill and hope. They debated seriously over which packs to get, negotiating like tiny businessmen.

“Get the Crimson Invasion,” I suggested. “Good pull rates.”

DeShawn looked at me with new respect. “You do know Pokémon!”

“Had a son who loved them,” I said quietly. “He had quite a collection.”

“Where is he now?” little Micah asked innocently.

“He passed away, buddy. Three months ago.”

The boys went silent. Then DeShawn said something that nearly destroyed me: “Then you’re like us. You’re in the Dead Dad Club. Except yours is the Dead Kid Club. That’s even worse.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “It’s pretty bad.”

“Do you cry like our mom?” Malik asked.

“Every day.”

“Does it get better?” Jerome wanted to know.

I knelt so I was eye-to-eye with them. “I don’t know yet. But I think it helps to remember the good stuff. Like Pokémon Fridays.”

Isaiah, who hadn’t said much, suddenly whispered, “Mom threw away our Pokémon cards. She said they reminded her too much of Dad. She was crying really hard that day.”

My heart sank. “All of them?”

He nodded. “That’s why we needed new ones. To start over. So we can still have Pokémon Fridays and remember Dad.”

I made a decision right there in that gas station. “How about I buy you five packs? One for each brother?”

Their eyes went wide. “That’s thirty dollars!”

“Consider it an investment in Pokémon Fridays,” I said.

We bought the cards. I also bought them hot chocolate and snacks because they kept eyeing the snack aisle with hungry looks. As we sat in that gas station, watching them open their packs with ceremony and joy, I felt something I hadn’t felt in three months.

Purpose.

“Mister,” DeShawn said as they prepared to leave. “What’s your name?”

“Big Mike,” I said.

“Big Mike, would you… would you want to come to Pokémon Friday at our house? Mom won’t mind. She likes meeting people who were nice to us.”

Before I could answer, little Micah grabbed my hand. “Please? You understand about people being gone. You could help Mom stop crying so much.”

I should have said no. Should have walked away. But I heard myself say, “When’s Pokémon Friday?”

“Tonight!” they chimed.

I followed them home in my truck. Their mom’s beat-up Honda led the way through a rough part of town. They lived in a small apartment in a worn-down complex. Their mother, Lisa, answered the door tired and wary.

“Who’s this?”

“This is Big Mike!” Micah announced. “He bought us Pokémon cards because we didn’t have enough money and his son passed away too so he understands!”

Lisa’s face shifted through several emotions. “You bought my kids Pokémon cards?”

“They had five dollars,” I said. “Seemed important to them.”

She burst into tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I threw away their cards because I couldn’t handle the memories and now they’re using their allowance to replace them and I’m such a terrible mother—”

“You’re not,” I said. “You’re grieving. There’s a difference.”

She let me in. The apartment was small but clean, pictures of a smiling man everywhere—their dad, clearly. A man who had loved his family enough to give them Pokémon Fridays.

That night, I sat with five little boys and their exhausted mother, opening Pokémon packs and remembering. They told me about their dad. I told them about Marcus. We cried together. We laughed together. We were strangers united by loss and cardboard pictures of cartoon creatures.

“Big Mike,” DeShawn said as I was leaving, “can you come back next Friday?”

I looked at Lisa, who nodded through her tears. “You’re welcome here. The boys… they need someone who understands.”

I came back the next Friday. And the Friday after that. For six months, I showed up every Friday with Pokémon cards, groceries I pretended I’d bought too much of, and time.

I helped with homework. Threw a football with Malik. Taught Jerome how to change a tire. Read bedtime stories to Isaiah and Micah.

I became Uncle Mike—the biker who showed up.

Lisa went back to school. Got a better job. The boys flourished.

And I… I healed. Not completely. You never fully recover from losing a child. But enough to function. Enough to find meaning again.

A year after meeting them, Lisa invited me to Thanksgiving. The boys made me a card:
“Thank you for being our Pokémon Friday friend and for making Mom smile again.”

“You saved us,” Lisa told me. “When I was drowning, you showed up.”

“They saved me too,” I said. “I was drowning in grief. They gave me a reason to get up on Fridays.”

Years passed. I was there for graduations, games, plays, and all the small victories.

I’m in my sixties now. The Robinson boys are teenagers and young men. They call me Grandpa Mike. Lisa remarried a good man who honors their father’s memory. We still do Pokémon Fridays.

Last week, DeShawn came home from college. Found me in the garage.

“Grandpa Mike,” he said, “I never really thanked you.”

“For what?”

“For seeing five scared kids in a gas station and choosing to stay. For being there when we needed a dad and you needed kids.”

He handed me something. A laminated, framed holographic Charizard.

“This was in the first pack you bought me,” he said. “I saved it for you. Because you’re the rarest thing we ever found—a stranger who became family.”

It broke me. I cried in that garage like a child.

“Marcus would be proud of you,” he said. “For choosing love after loss.”

Now that Charizard hangs in my garage beside a picture of Marcus and a photo of five little boys in a gas station holding Pokémon cards.

My two families—connected by cardboard, grief, and love.

People ask why a tough biker spends Fridays opening Pokémon cards with kids who aren’t his.

The answer is simple:

Five little boys with five dollars taught me that grief doesn’t have to be the end.
That showing up matters.
That family is the people who meet you on Fridays—
whether you’re related by blood or by Pokémon cards.