Personal Journal

Danielle

Today I'm going to go do one of those strange things that I do. I'm going to go tell a stranger more than she has a right to now. I'm not going to expect her to understand, this time. Because I'm not going to hang around to see it. It's more of a physical prayer, or offering, before god, and the person doesn't really matter in that sense, except to receive my offering to Him.

Danielle was my server a couple of times at a local restaurant. I kept going in there for lunch, about six or eight times. I ordered a beer, and a water, and told my server (whoever it was that day) to leave me be alone until I was done with my beer, then I'd order.

I popped a vicodin and drank (always on an empty stomach), and if I didn't say so a few days ago, that is one helluva way to start your afternoon with a nice attitude. And I'd people-watch, and think of Jean, and sometimes I'd talk to Jean and listen to what she has to say. Sometimes I'd cry softly there in a restaurant full of people, very softly, and no one seemed to notice.

It got me thinking, the last time I was in there (Thursday, after I left work early and was having such a hard day, when I was having 3 beers that day) about a Hemingway story I read... more than 20 years ago, called "A clean, well-lighted place."

That story is about a man who was behaving the way I had been at the restaurant - coming in, having a drink, not talking to anyone, but clearly working something out in his own head. It's told from the point of view of two of the bar employees - an old one telling a young one that sometimes a person needs to come to a clean, well-lighted place to resolve a thought long working in their minds. And the older told the younger not to bother such a person.

So out of nowhere, I asked Danielle, who is probably 19 and a freshman at the local college, if she would read a book if I brought it in to her. She pondered, and explained how she absolutely loves to read, and said that yes, she would read it. I assured her that I'm never going to ask her out, and that I'm not a creep, but that I lost someone dear to me recently, and I come do what I do because I think about her.

So today I'm going to buy that Hemingway short-story book with that in it (It's called The Snows of Kilamanjaro if you're interested). And I'm going to get a little card saying some sort of thank you. And I'm going to tell her to read the story. I'm going to drop a picture of Jean in with the card, and tell DAnielle that she strikes me as a young woman who is going to go someplace with her life, and Jean would like that, and Jean would want Danielle to believe in herself.

And I'll say that yes, I know it's strange for a stranger to do this. But I consider it perhaps like helping to make Jean's death mean something - that it will help me think that her life has beneficial consequences in the world that will always be beyond my sight, and that will make it easier for me to accept her death. Because everywhere I go, I'll wonder what happened to that waitress whom I told about Jean, and Hemingway, and I'll know that somewhere, she'll think about Jean from time to time.

That will be my prayer.

It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn