Lessons I'm Going
To Teach My Kids
Too Late #70
My wife lost my favourite pen. Well, gave it away. A contractor working at the house needed to write something down, so she went into my desk and gave him one of my pens, not realizing it was my favourite. Then he left it at his next job, who knows where. It’s gone now and I can’t get it back.
My friend Ali in college gave me that pen. Well, I made him buy it for me after he lost the one I lent him. It was funny at the time to make him do that, to find an exact replacement. He went along with the joke too, going to a half-dozen different stationery stores to find the exact model. Gift-wrapped it with a bow and everything.
Six months later, he died in a car accident. Young boys on the cusp of adulthood suddenly having to deal with death, some of us handled it better than others. At the funeral, I couldn’t introduce myself to his family. I sat alone in the corner of the church, not talking to anybody. When I signed the book of condolences, I realized I was using the pen, then cried alone in my car.
I made my wife replace the pen. Well, I asked her to and she did, but I didn’t tell her why it was my favourite. She went to exactly one store. It’s a fine pen, but it’s not the same pen. I don’t even know if they still make them. I wasn’t going to make her hunt it down, it just didn’t feel like it would be funny this time.
So now I have a pen to remind me of another pen that reminded me of a friend, a friend whose face I can’t even remember anymore. There have been other deaths in my life since then and they all hurt in their way, but not like that one. Too young, too early, too random.
Maybe it’s better she gave the pen away. Another memory I don’t need — leave it in the past, like a pen tucked away in a corner of my desk drawer where my wife won’t be able to find it next time.
Well, maybe not too well-hidden, in case somebody needs to write something down.
Lesson #70 —
For Where Your Treasure Is,
There Will Your Heart Be Also
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