A Bet on Love

By Michael Patrick O’Brien–

Anyone who thinks February is defined by presidents, valentines, or groundhogs has never spent any time around a parochial school during Catholic auction season.

Just after the turn of the millennium, our family school was St. Vincent de Paul in Holladay, Utah. Upon enrollment, we acquired not just a good education for our children, but also enduring friendships in a vibrant community of fellow parents. The price for both, of course, was helping to plan the school’s annual fundraising auction.

I was drafted into this task in the fall of 2007 when our middle daughter Megan was in middle school. Each class had to design and build something of value that could be auctioned off. I was put in charge of our class project. I can’t build anything, so this particular appointment was a real gamble. Appropriately, I turned to poker for a solution.

Except for the occasional adolescent fantasy about strip poker, I was never a big fan of the game enjoyed by so many others. I did not master the fabled Kenny Rogers’ know-when-to-hold-em skills, and thus I always hated the typical game outcome—handing over my hard earned cash to someone else.

I disliked the card game so much that I even turned down invitations to play from one of the nicest guys around—Rich Ulibarri—my fellow school parent and cherished neighbor up the street (see: The Golden Rule Made Easy). Rich’s wise wife Marylynn let him play poker as long as he didn’t drink whiskey. Rich agreed to the prohibition and hosted many games at his home, all without me.

Although I never played with him, I never forgot Rich was a poker man. When I learned he also was a skilled woodworker, I had a class auction project epiphany, and started one of my greatest feats of lawyerly persuasion—convincing Rich to build a customized poker table for the school auction.

He had not built one before, and knew it would take many hours of work. As a result, he politely ignored the request at first, as if I was joking. Then he started outright dodging me at school and around the neighborhood, no easy task given that we lived on a cul de sac.

I persisted, and eventually pulled out the big negotiating gun. I promised auction immunity—I would never involve him in such matters again. With Marylynn taking my side and sweetly reminding him, “It’s for the kids,” Rich finally gave in and we closed the deal. There was one condition—I had to help.

Well, watch out what you ask for, right? With my help, it probably took him twice as long to finish, especially given my utter lack of familiarity with saws and other tools. Eventually, my “help” devolved into something I could manage—bringing him beers, staying out of his way, and telling him he was going a great job.

That last thing was not idle flattery—he did do a great job. The final product was a lovely oak table, upholstered on top in Kelly green fabric, and including spaces for cups and chips. To accessorize his fine work product, we created poker chips with the school name/crest on one side and photos of all the 7th grade class students on the other. One of them featured our Megan, and another showed Rich’s 12 year old son Nate.

At the auction in February 2008, the bids were generous. The table sold, at a high price, to the Trentman family, who were pillars and stalwarts of the community. Ric and Ann Trentman’s daughter Maddy was in the same class as Nate and my daughter. Unlike us O’Briens, many Trentman brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, and nephews also had attended/supported St. Vincent’s, a trend that continued for many years after.

The money the Trentmans paid for the poker table helped support students who could not afford tuition. As for Rich’s table? For many years it occupied a place of pride and honor in the Trentman home. They extended its hospitality to both friends and family, a treasured centerpiece of love and fellowship up until a hot summer morning in July 2013.

Five years after he built the table, the now 50-year old Rich Ulibarri was finishing a long bicycle ride with a good friend. He felt chest pain and collapsed at the side of a narrow road, near a rock bridge straddling a small dry creek bed. Rich’s friend—and soon Marylynn too—summoned help, ministered to him tenderly, and transported him to the hospital.

His stricken body, however, could no longer contain his powerful spirit. The world changed forever on that day, as Rich’s soul ascended through an eternal veil painted with blue skies and wispy white clouds.

The Trentmans were part of the St. Vincent’s coterie that gathered at the hospital on that long and dreadful morning. We all were stricken too, but understood viscerally that we had to be together one last time…with Rich, and to grieve with his wife, children (Nate, Marissa, Madison), and extended family. The Trentmans quietly decided, however, that they must do something more than just mourn.

It took several years, while a young boy matured into a young man, for the seeds of that Trentman plan to germinate and blossom. That day arrived during Christmastime 2020. In the midst of a gloomy pandemic winter, Ric and Ann dusted off Rich’s poker table, packed it up, loaded it on a truck, and moved it to a new home—the condominium that a now 25-year old Nate Ulibarri had just purchased.

Never in my worst nightmares did I ever imagine we would lose Rich just a few years after I cajoled him into building his lovely poker table for a good cause. At the time of their generous auction bid, the Trentmans had no notion that they were to be the trusted stewards of a sacred family heirloom. And there is no way Rich could have known, as he devoted hours of his time and talent to the task I gave him, that what he really was doing was building a poker table for his beloved only son.

Yet, that is exactly what happened.

Acts of generosity do not guarantee a good outcome, but they do better the odds and increase the chances of a winning hand. Kindness may always be a bit of gamble, but a wager on love usually is a pretty good bet.

*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, will be published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021