Gary

Several years ago I was the receptionist for the company I work for. Overall, not a bad job at all. The worst part of the job was when guests had to wait for long periods of time in the little reception area. I never knew what to do. I can make small talk and smile for a few minutes, but on the fairly often occasions when people had to wait and wait (and wait) I got uncomfortable. Do I continue making small talk? Do I go back to what I was doing and ignore them? Do I (shudder) ask them if it's really as beautiful outside as it looks through the front window?

Eventually, I'd start getting pissed at the co-worker the guest was there to see. Ok, so the guest is 15 minutes early for the meeting. Is it really necessary to make him wait just to prove a point? Ok, so this guy doesn't have an appointment. Have some balls and come out and tell him that you don't have time to meet with him right now and set up an appointment. Please, for the love of God, don't have him sit in the reception area for 40 minutes while you stand back in the kitchen drinking coffee and talking about your golf game, then saunter out and graciously say, "I can squeeze you in for about 5 minutes."

Rude. And bad karma to boot.

Gary was the exception. He was a freelance artist who did a lot of work for our marketing department. I can guarantee that Gary never had to wait in the reception area because he was 15 minutes early for a meeting. No. Gary was always late. At least once a week, marketing would let me know that Gary was coming in for a 2pm meeting, and that I could send him right back to the marketing area. He didn't need to wait for someone to escort him.

2pm - no Gary
2:15pm - no Gary
3pm - marketing would call and ask if he had called in
3:15pm - no Gary
3:30pm - Marketing would call up front and say "ok, this is pissing us off. We're going into a meeting, so when Gary shows up he's going to have to wait for us. That'll teach him."

And around 4:10pm or so, Gary would finally roar into the parking lot - in a beat up old van in the wintertime, and a beautiful shiny big ass motorcycle in the summertime - and rush through the door with the look. It was a little boy expression of "I'm trying so hard to be an adult, but I Just Can't Help It" and dammit, how could you not forgive him?

The days that he had to wait in the little reception area where my best days. He would pull out the work that he was doing for marketing and show it off. He would tell me about his motorcycle and ask me about my hobbies. Basically he was just downright nice and friendly. Nothing special. Just genuinely nice. Also, genuinely hot. He stood out from a crowd - tall, long hair, edgy clothes. At first glance he looked like the motorcycle dude that he was. Or at first glance, he looked like the artist that he was. With either of those stereotypes, I would expect aloofness. He wasn't aloof. He was anti-aloof. You couldn't shut him up. For many months, he was my perfect man. Except for the lateness thing.

Right after I moved from receptionist into another department, marketing finally got tired of the lateness too, and started using Gary for less and less jobs. Over the past few years, I've only seen him a handful of times.

Gary was killed in a car accident earlier this week. It was one of those accidents that was so horrific that even if I didn't know the person involved, I would read the news article, then play out the whole scene in my head over and over - the little morbid director in my head saying "ok, one more time, and THIS time, do the part where the car flips over in slow motion and get a nice tight close up on the driver's face." He was 33 years old.

I don't know Gary well enough to know what he accomplished in his 33 years. He had his own business. That's pretty impressive. His artwork was amazing. Also impressive. My guess is that there was a lot more he didn't get accomplished (like licking that lateness thing.) When I see a news story where someone has died young I always think, "Did they get done what they were here to do?"

I don't know what Gary was here to do, but I know what he did.

He made me comfortable by ignoring my shyness.
He never, EVER failed to smile.
He was different, but he was true to himself.
He didn't have to go out of his way to make my day brighter. He just made sure he was THERE, ENGAGED when he was talking to me.

If I can do those things too. If, after I'm gone, I'm remembered as being genuinely nice - I'm remembered by one person as making them feel comfortable, I will totally have been a good person.

The world is less one Really Good Person.

Bye Gary.
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Saturday, August 7

This was the Quote of the Day on my browser homepage this morning:

The best portion of a good man's life are the little, nameless,
unremembered acts of kindness and love.- William Wordsworth

Old Bill Wordsworth summed up a whole jumble of my feelings in eighteen words.