I have toiled at my workplace for awhile now and it has afforded me the opportunity to meet all manner of people with whom I may not have otherwise crossed paths. Two years ago, I became acquainted with a local painter when he was hired to work on a few of our art installations. He was an unassuming man: slight, quiet — meek, almost — and his mannerisms sometimes suggested that he wasn’t quite sure how to fill out and own his own skin. He was kind and thoughtful and I enjoyed our conversations about the work and his projects, but it was when we discovered that both his mother and my grandmother were ailing from senile dementia that we truly bonded. He shared his struggles of having lived with it, experienced it in a day-to-day fashion; he suggested books for me to read, books to educate, books to understand. I looked forward to talking with him. I knew that he got it.
My grandmother passed away as the winter opened its doors to a new spring. His own mother followed in the final, lingering days of summer. We were both moved to a new place of loss and grief, burdens lifted, unanticipated guilt. Neither of us had any answers, but our talks were still a comfort. I knew that he got me.
I was saddened to learn that he died this week. I had not known he was so ill — none of us had — but it would seem that he had lived far longer than anyone had expected. It’s funny how we had shared so much but how I had known so little about the rest of his life: he had brothers and sisters, he had children. It’s only now when he is gone that I got to see the bigger picture beyond the tiny, invaluable slice I had been gifted. Wherever he is, I would like to think that he is still creating his art, and that he is healthy and at peace. I would like to think that maybe now I get him, too.
Post a Comment