I talk to people all day at work. I am a customer service robot.
“Hi, how are you?”
“Did you find everything alright?”
“Have a fantastic day.”
People are rude a lot of the time and I’m mostly a blank smile with the occasional outburst where I tell someone to die in a fire. The nice customers are rare, the ones you actually talk to even rarer.
Today, an older man walked up to where I was texting you, and bought two oranges, those organic key lime-white chocolate chip cookies, and a quart of milk. I put my phone away and put on my automatic smile.
“Hi.” I reached for the oranges.
“Hello, young lady, how are you today?” he said. His light blue eyes looked tired.
“I’m excellent, and yourself?” I scanned the items and put them in a bag.
“As good as I can be.”
“Bad day?” I crossed my arms in front of me.
“Bad few months. Shopping for food is weird without my wife.”
He lowered his eyes and my heart instantly broke for him. No one else was around so I leaned towards him.
“How long has it been?” I asked him.
“3 months.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry.”
“It’s just, you’re never prepared for it. You spend your whole life loving someone and suddenly it’s over, and you don’t know how to do anything else.” There were tears in his eyes.
“What was her name?”
“Diane. I’m sorry, let me pay you.” He swiped his credit card and waited for the receipt to print.
“I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I would die. What was she like?” I couldn’t stop myself from talking.
“She was a schoolteacher, and she was the funniest person I knew. I could talk to her for days.”
“She sounds amazing.” I felt myself tearing up.
“She was. I miss her all the time.” He put the receipt in the bag. “Do you have a boyfriend or a husband or something?”
“Something like that, I have a man. I’m very much in love with him.” I had full blown tears running down my cheeks by this point. “I don’t know, it’s just a feeling I get, I just know about him.”
“I found Diane young, too, and I knew. What’s his name?”
“Gabe. He’s really smart and makes me laugh a lot. He seems pretty mad about me even though I’m a pain in the ass. I’m mad about him.” I smiled a little as I wiped my eyes.
“I can tell. Hang onto that, okay? You won’t find it often, if ever again. Someone who will love you like that, I mean.”
“I definitely know, don’t worry.”
“It was nice talking to you,” he said.
“It was nice talking to you, too.” I held out my hand and he took it in both of his larger hands. We stayed that way for a while until he let me go.
“I hope things get easier to bear with,” I said.
“Me too,” he said. “And love that boyfriend of yours and let him love you. It’s all that really matters in this world.”
He picked up his bag and walked out with a little wave. I waved back and stood still for a long time, shaken by the incident. I felt so close to someone I didn’t even know. These things happen to me sometimes and I wonder what they mean. I wanted to call you and tell you about it. I wanted you to tell me you love me and that I shouldn’t cry. I wanted to call my grandma and ask her if she was scared of losing my grandpa after 51 years of marriage. I wondered how you exist without the one you love. I was miserable for a month without you, the possibility of death tearing you apart seems unfathomable. It was a small moment, not very important in the whole scheme of things, but somehow I am shaken. I want to stop taking things for granted, you, my family, my friends, work, school, writing, reading books, going to the beach, traveling. Things move fast and I need to get every last second out of life that I can possibly squeeze out of it. I keep thinking of this broken man, a hole permanently in him due to this loss, and I dread the day I will lose you like that. You tell me not to worry or think of those things and so I try to put it out of my mind. I think of the life that will span from this day to our last day together and I wonder what will fill it. Words, kisses, afternoon fucks, making dinner together, sleeping intertwined. I have to think of the life that is to come if I’m going to live it at all. Death is just a reminder to keep living in the same way I love you, eyes forward, leaping.
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