Tonight as I look at the calendar, it is hard to realize
that in two weeks we will be journeying back to Minnesota. Our homeland and our
summer home. Our stay in Arizona this winter was more then I hoped it would be.
Tonight as I think about having to leave here, my heart is full and I wish for
many more winters like this. But the weather, the beauty of the desert, the
mountains and all nature has to offer down here in the Southwest, pales in the
new friendships Pat and I have made on this winter hiatus. We can’t wait to
come back here and strengthen them. We left a lot of friends and family behind
us in Minnesota last fall and now it’s time to play catch up. But tonight I really don’t want to talk
about any of that.
Instead I want to talk about a special man I met down here.
I’ll call him Tom, but that’s not his real name. You see Tom has dementia or at
least the start of it. He struggles to find the right words and he repeats a
lot of things over and over but I for one feel blessed that I am able to share
some thoughts with him from time to time. I know there will be a time when Tom
won’t be able to talk to me. A time when all the knowledge this wonderful
talented man possess, will be locked away where no one can get at it. A time
when he probably will not know me or be able to operate out in this world on
his own. I have always liked to talk to people-- and I guess I still do--- but
maybe for somewhat selfish reasons because I wanted them to share things from
their life that I could write or talk about. That’s what writers do, they take
their exploits, their adventures and they talk about them and when they run out
of their own stories to tell-- then they go talk to other people. You see the
world is full of stories that need to be told. I always felt the more
knowledgeable the people I talked to were-- or are-- the better. The worldlier
they were the more I envied them because they had been somewhere I never will
be. They knew something I didn’t know and I wanted to pick their brain and have
them share it with me. At the same time when they were all out of their
stories, I wanted to talk with them about my life and I hoped that they would
let me share some of my stories with them too. But then I met a man who
seemingly had so little to share. I met Tom.
Maybe it’s the way Tom’s eyes light up when he sees me. I
don’t care how many times he asks me the same questions or tells me the same
things. I want to hear them over and over again and hope that by so doing he
clings onto some semblance of pride and self worth and a realization that he is
such a special person, not only to his family but to me too. I want him to
never forget and maybe just maybe if he continues to talk about things long
enough, they just might not go away. Maybe its all foolishness to think like
this but what do we have to lose.
I know that we won’t see each other for the next several
months, as he doesn’t live in Minnesota and his wife and he go north to
someplace else. But I’m hoping that next fall when I see Tom again he will
smile that big smile again and say, “Hi Mike. It’s good to see you again.”
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