Had the TV on yesterday, watching part of a feel-good Hallmark movie as I ate my late lunch, and saw a commercial come on for the finale of This Is Us. It started with a woman singing a snippet of "Time After Time," and clearly was focusing on one of the characters whose memory was going, probably permanently, through one of the horrific mind-stealers such as Alzheimer's.
Now, I don't watch that show. I never have, although it's been recommended to me. I got a couple of glimpses of some scenes in promos, heard some comments online about it, and decided it wouldn't be a good place for me to hang around, for more than one reason. So, in one sense, I had no context for how deeply the commercial hit me.
But it did me in. Because the woman's voiceover was saying, "I'm not afraid of losing the big stuff. That's not what I'm worried about. It's the little things I'm afraid of losing."
And I sat in front of the TV and bawled.
Because that's what it's always, and ever, all about.
That's what life is about.
A thousand little things. Strung together, for a few thousand days, multiplied over a few decades' worth of walking the planet...are what life ends up being about.
And it's what loss is also about, in its most painful and persistent form.
We all talk about it, after we lose someone we love.
We talk about the little things. Like missing their voice on the phone. Like longing for their smile across the kitchen table. Like expecting them to come walking around the corner any minute, carrying the newspaper, or a coffee cup, or the cat...
But they're never going to do that again.
And every time we have to face that, over and over, it's a new shattering inside.
This has nothing to do with whether we believe we'll ever see them again. For Catholics, as it says so touchingly in the funeral liturgy, life is changed, not ended, and frankly? That's the only thing that keeps most of us a) sane, and b) from offing ourselves out of sheer agony or despair. We know we'll see them again.
But that's also what makes it so hard.
Because when someone is woven in the warp and woof of your life, their absence leaves holes in you. And those holes often don't mend all the way. Sometimes, they snag. Tear open.
And sometimes, the craziest things can be snags.
Like the ad for a TV show you don't even watch.
Or an ad for French fries.
Yep. You heard that right.
There's an ad out there right now from Wendy's, touting their "Hot and Crispy Fries."
But Wendy's fries were bragging material way before this...at least in my world.
As in, early 1980.
When I first began hanging out with Patrick, one of our conversations touched on the various jobs we'd had over the years. One of those jobs, for him, was working in high school, part-time...at (you guessed it) Wendy's.
Making French fries.
Yeah, of course, tons of kids work in fast food when they're in high school. And the Wendy's connection is "just a coincidence."
Except...that the conversation we had about French fries would probably have made Dave Thomas himself proud. Because Patrick didn't just learn how to make fries; he learned how to make them from a guy who was so good at it that people used to stop at Wendy's in Palatine just for the fries. They'd get the other parts of their meal elsewhere, but Wendy's had the best fries in town, even then. Even before they decided to call their brand "Hot and Crispy," this guy's fries were hot, crispy, and addictive.
And he taught Patrick how to make them that way, too. Something that this young pup took very seriously, indeed, because the restaurant's reputation hung on it.
Thus, during one of my first conversations with my future husband, I learned the proper way to prepare fries so they were hot, crispy but not dry, and tender but not soggy. Patrick enjoyed learning how to do it, and he was proud that he learned to do it to his mentor's standards.
The funny parts about this?
First, that I couldn't tell you exactly how it was done now.
But second?
That Patrick could take a look at the technique of the "fry guy" in any food place we went to, pretty much for the rest of our lives, and tell me if the fries were going to be any good or not.
And he'd be right.
Recently, I heard some sports commentators talking about working the "fry" area of a restaurant--and claiming that "everybody knew" that making fries was the worst job in the place. It was always given to the rank beginners, the guys on the bottom of the totem pole.
Yet, at least one guy--and his apprentice--made the product of that lowly job something the restaurant became known for, and did it with a great deal of pride.
I applauded it then, as I applaud it now.
Little things.
You never know how they may come back, years later, and touch your life.
So pay attention...now.
And appreciate that good fry guy, if you've got one.
Because someone, somewhere, loves him.
And he won't always be around...for either of you.
Thoughts?
Janny
