Monday, December 17, 2007

oops, i did it again

I started a company!

UP/AWAY

(Second time's a charm, right?)

Monday, December 10, 2007

(un)spoken

The differences.

If you were to describe us. Contrast. Compare. The first one hundred things you'd say would be about how we are unalike. Antithetic. Opposite. My offbeat meets his steady as he goes. My problems solving creates his problems. Our only sameness is that we work at the same place. Sit in the same area. Do the same things.

We're not close. And we never will be.

But because of a poorly timed death and an every Friday meeting I found myself sitting with him as he looked around the room and checked his watch and seemed unsure of what to do. His eyes were glassy. And I was off guard.

"Are you ok?" I asked.

"I think my dad just died." he said.

I told him to go home. I would help with whatever he needed. Leave. Go. "I'm so sorry." Asking if there was anything I could do knowing that, of course, there wouldn't be. He scooped up his things and a minute or two later he was walking down the hall. Toward the elevators. Black wool coat, black bag, black pants, black shoes. Blond hair.

I was the only one who knew.

That's another difference. He is an unknown. I'm an open book.

But I didn't tell a soul.

Monday morning and an awkward meeting in the hall. I was surprised to see him. He was not happy to see me. My look of concern being obvious. The question he knew was forming on my tongue.

"How are you?"

"I'm alright."

"Will you be here all week?" I said while thinking "Why are you hear at all?"

"They already had the funeral."

I must have looked like the dozen questions I was thinking.

"I never met my dad."

I would like to say that I took a breath here. That there was a second of eye contact or meaning. That the world stopped. But it didn't. It was like strained party conversation. But I told him anyway.

"Me neither. My dad died when I was twelve. I remember that day down to what I was wearing."

"Yeah?"

Standing and facing each other. Realizing that for the first time in my life this was the only person I'd ever met who had never met their real dad. The first person I'd ever meet who now never could. And knowing full well that we'd never talk about it again.

"What's hard isn't letting them go. Because they were never here. What's hard is letting go of the idea of meeting them. That's what took me the longest." Summing up my greatest loss in four sentences. Handing it to him so he could name his.

"That's it. That's it."