5 Little Boys Asked Me To Buy Them Pokemon Cards As They Don’t Have Money

5 little boys walked up to me and asked if I’d buy them Pokemon cards because their dad just died 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 Pokemon 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. Pokemon 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 Pokemon 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 died 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 Pokemon 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 died. 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 dead son’s Pokemon collection because I couldn’t afford both the funeral and the headstone.

My boy, Marcus, had been eight when he died. Leukemia. We’d spent his last good months collecting Pokemon 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 Pokemon 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 Pokemon.”

That was a lie. I knew everything about Pokemon. I’d memorized every card Marcus had ever wanted, every evolution, every rare holographic that he’d 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 about which sets had the best odds.

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

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

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

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

“He died, buddy. Three months ago.”

The boys went quiet. 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 down so I was at their eye level. “I don’t know yet. But I think it helps to remember the good stuff. Like Pokemon Fridays.”

Isaiah, who hadn’t said much, suddenly spoke. “Mom threw away our Pokemon 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 Pokemon 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 Pokemon Fridays,” I said.

We bought the cards. I also bought them hot chocolate and snacks because they kept eyeing the snack aisle with the look of kids who hadn’t eaten enough lately. 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 Pokemon 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 dead people. You could help Mom stop crying so much.”

I should have said no. Should have walked away. I was a stranger, a biker they’d met in a gas station. But I heard myself saying, “When’s Pokemon Friday?”

“Tonight!” they chorused.

I followed them home in my truck, watching their mom’s beat-up Honda navigate through the rough part of town. They lived in a small apartment in a complex that had seen better days.

Their mother, Lisa, answered the door looking exhausted and suspicious. “Who’s this?”

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

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

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

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

“You’re not,” I said firmly. “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, obviously, a man who’d loved his family enough to start Pokemon Friday tradition.

That night, I sat with five little boys and their exhausted mother, opening Pokemon 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 monsters.

“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 male influence. 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 Pokemon cards, groceries I pretended I “accidentally” bought too much of, and time.

I helped DeShawn with homework. Taught Malik how to throw a football. Showed Jerome how to change a tire on Lisa’s car. 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 thrived. And I… I healed. Not completely. You never heal completely from losing a child. But enough to function. Enough to find purpose.

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

“You saved us,” Lisa told me that night. “When I was drowning, when I’d given up, you showed up. A stranger in a gas station who my boys decided to trust.”

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

Two years later, I was at DeShawn’s middle school graduation. Three years later, at Malik’s basketball championship. Four years later, teaching Jerome to drive. Five years later, helping Isaiah with his first science fair project. Six years later, watching little Micah – not so little anymore – perform in his first school play.

I’m in my sixties now. The Robinson boys are teenagers and young men. DeShawn’s in college. Malik’s playing high school football. Jerome wants to be a mechanic like me. Isaiah’s a straight-A student. Micah still gives the best hugs.

They call me Grandpa Mike now. Lisa remarried a good man who doesn’t try to replace their father but honors his memory. We still do Pokemon Friday, though now it’s sometimes Pokemon and pizza, or Pokemon and homework help, or just sitting around talking about life.

Last week, DeShawn came home from college for break. He found me in the garage working on my bike.

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

“For what?”

“For seeing five scared kids in a gas station and not walking away. For showing up every Friday for six years. For being there when we needed a dad and you needed kids. For teaching us that family isn’t just blood.”

He handed me something. A Pokemon card, laminated and framed. A holographic Charizard – the rarest, most valuable card.

“This was in the first pack you ever bought me,” he said. “I never told anyone I pulled it. I saved it. For you. Because you’re the rarest thing we ever found – a stranger who became family.”

I’m a tough old biker. I’ve survived bar fights, bike crashes, the death of my son. But that card broke me. I cried like a baby in that garage while DeShawn hugged me.

“Marcus would be proud of you,” he said. “For not letting grief destroy you. For saving us instead.”

The card hangs in my garage now, next to a picture of Marcus and a picture of five little boys in a gas station holding Pokemon cards. My two families, connected by cardboard and loss and love.

People ask me sometimes why a tough biker spends his Friday nights with a family that isn’t his. Why I never miss a school play or basketball game. Why I’ve spent thousands on Pokemon cards over the years.

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 who’s there on Fridays, whether you’re related by blood or by Pokemon cards.

I lost my son. But I gained five more. They didn’t replace Marcus – nothing ever could. But they gave me a reason to keep living when all I wanted to do was join him.

That’s what Pokemon Friday really is. It’s not about the cards. It’s about showing up. It’s about five little boys who saw a scary biker and decided to trust him with their five dollars and their broken hearts.

It’s about a grief-stricken father who found purpose in a gas station aisle.

It’s about family you choose and memories you build and the healing that happens when broken people help each other stay whole.

Every Friday, I still show up with Pokemon cards.

Because some traditions are too important to die with the people who started them.

Because five little boys taught this old biker that love doesn’t end when life does.

It just finds new ways to show up.

Every Friday.

Without fail.

Forever.