Save the Date

It has been a while since I have felt the sensation of grief or loneliness pass through me. Six years since His event, four since the last tears over it fell.

I went on a blind date today. I held no expectations over it. He was a software engineer from Santa Barbara, which I hardly took note of at the start. Halfway through brunch, he had to take an urgent call from his office. Another workaholic, I presumed. His face was moderately dour when he returned, but he made no attempts to excuse himself from our meal. After my initial failed attempts to restart our conversation, he spoke out plainly, "My boss just died."

I inquired further, prompting him to elaborate on the man himself as well as the relationship they had. I could not tell from his expression whether there was one to speak of. In his words, it was strictly formal, though they had worked together for years. His boss had been a middle-aged man, perhaps in his early fifties, in good health, though with no family of his own. The death was sudden, the cause not yet released. I asked him if he had any personal anecdotes to share—perhaps some brief moments in the office he could remember him by—but there were none.

"He was a good man, though," he repeated for the third time.

The weather this morning had been perfect: the cool ocean breeze stirring in fresh life, the sun shining confidently on the marigolds in the planter next to us. There had been marigolds six years ago at His funeral too, and the weather then had been just as pristine. There was no scent in the air, and yet I felt as if a sudden breath of memory had swept its way into me.

Somehow, before that moment, I had let it pass without note that He had also been a software engineer from Santa Barbara. And for the first time, it occurred to me that He, too, must have been someone’s boss, and they, too, must have known so little about his private life, as He, too, had no family of his own. I had been the closest thing to a daughter He might have had, and He had been the closest thing to kindness I had ever had.

And here I was, on a date with His employee who had no lasting memory of Him to speak of. No—it wasn’t His employee...this was someone else entirely. The past was audaciously overflowing into my present reality. Despite the abruptness of his death, I had no reason to believe that this man had also taken up the hobby of running marathons to escape the unending drudgery of clocking in and out, day after day. I had no reason to believe that this man had also hanged himself in the middle of the week because running had failed to be enough.

Yet, staring at the now vacant expression in the man sitting across from me, a man who had glided along the past twenty minutes of our conversation with noncommittal shrugs and passing comments of, “I guess it really makes you think,” my vision began to blur. Mercilessly, my inner eye flicked back and forth between this morning and six years ago. It was such a goddamn beautiful day. Reencountering this juxtaposition of beauty and loss reminded me ever so deeply just how alone we all are. No, I was conflating memories again. What I truly recalled was how alone I had been back then, and how alone He had been in all the moments leading up to it.

For four years, I had been untouchable to grief, as death naturally came to claim more of those around me, those who I could only vaguely recall as being dear to me. For four years, I had been untouchable to loneliness, as no new absence could come close to the depth of the scarred pit He left behind.

I went home and wept for this man whose face I did not even know. Or maybe it wasn’t for him at all. I won’t pretend my heart holds the capacity for such magnitudes of compassion. I was simply crying over the slim possibility that this man might have shared a parallel anguish to someone I once loved and failed, nothing more.

As for the date, well, maybe next time I will attempt to look at the man I am with, instead of staring down at my own tunnel of expired misery. I wish to be past the age where I need the person sitting across from me to notice that my eyes have drifted into their own secret room. Showing up to be seen rather than to see is something only loss has managed to cure out of me, yet when the loss itself creeps its way back in, I tend to lose sight of why I was there. He had once told me, “Don’t let your past or future steal from your presence. That's all it was, and that's all it will ever be.” I'll keep trying.

For the man who died today, I hope someone who has seen you will miss you. It was a beautiful day.