By Peg McRoy Glover
At the end of December a money mishap occurred when Robert Cron, 82, took his wife Shirley, 80, to the IU Health Simon Cancer Center in Indianapolis for her weekly infusions.
Somewhere on their ride home from the cancer center to their home in Avon, Cron lost $120 he thought was secured in his pocket with a money clip.
“I know $120 doesn’t sound like much money, but we are hard pressed and living on Social Security,” said Cron. “That was all of the money we had for the rest of the month.”
The couple hires a transportation service to get back and forth to Shirley’s medical treatments. Cron noticed a pocket knife fell out of his pocket when he exited the vehicle to assist Shirley. He thought perhaps the money fell out at the same time but went unnoticed.
“We live in Avon, but we aren’t annexed to the town,” said Cron. “So, we called the Hendricks County Sheriff’s office for help thinking that maybe they could help me track down the driver.”
Cpl. Nick Korpal responded to their call.
“I explained to him what happened,” said Cron. “He went outside to see what he could do. When he came back, we found out that tracking down the vehicle didn’t work out, but he had one more thing he was going to try.”
Korpal checked with his wife on an idea he had to help out the Crons. Once he got the go-ahead from his wife, that “one more thing” was replacing the missing $120 with Korpals’ personal money.
“We have been blessed by God a whole bunch, and now we had the opportunity to bless someone else,” said Korpal. “When I learned that his wife was undergoing infusion treatments, it resonated and motivated me because recently I had loved ones go through the same treatments.”
Korpal returned to the Crons’ home with $120 in cash. When he handed it to him, Cron quickly knew it wasn’t the missing money because there wasn’t a money clip on it. Plus, Cron had thoroughly searched his yard, driveway and sidewalk before calling the sheriff’s office and knew it wasn’t out there.
Not to be deterred, Korpal put the money into Cron’s hand and said, “Believe me, this is your money. I have talked to my wife, and we really want to do this.”
The only thing that Korpal asked in response was for the Crons to remember him in prayer.
“We immediately invited him into our home for a prayer,” said Cron. “We always pray for the men in blue because they aren’t always appreciated. I just don’t understand any of that.”
As the next couple of weeks unfolded, the Crons received some unexpected help from another organization that lessened the need for that $120.
“Shirley and I decided we would return that money to Cpl. Korpal,” said Cron. “Could we have used it for something else? Sure. But it was the Christian thing to do. I told him that he had blessed us and now it was our turn to bless him.”
They met at the sheriff’s office. Cron gave back the$120 to Korpal, thanked him, and then hugged him.
“He did what God wanted him to do. Then, I did what God wanted me to do,” said Cron.