Soul Recognition

So here I was in the driveway getting my stuff out of my car after pulling in a minute before. I had planned to spend the rest of the work day in my home office, catching up on emails, technical research, and month end reporting. I was mentally focused on prioritizing what I needed to get done when I overheard Jose speaking to someone in Spanish. He had been working upstairs today instead of going to the office since he wasn’t feeling too well. Now he was standing outside talking to an elderly man about a stone and brick wall we have that has been damaged and needed repairs… it’s been on our call-someone list for a while now. It seems this guy was doing some work at a neighbor’s house and saw the broken bricks and lighting fixture, and then he saw Jose in the garage and walked over to see if he might be interested in getting that taken care of. If you don't know, I LOVE hearing Jose speak Spanish… like, it’s in my top 10 favorite things. It is probably for the same reason I was so in love with my first “official” boyfriend, Alex, in 1st grade. Oh, it made me plain giddy to know I was a future member of his family. I remember going to his birthday party at his house and hearing nothing but Spanish in the kitchen and living room; I SO wanted to make a good impression on my future in-laws. I was fascinated. And smitten. Everyone has their things that they’re attracted to in a person… a type or whatever. A dark-complected person with a kind disposition that speaks a latin language has, from time to time, made me weak in the knees... starting at the age of 6. There, I said it.

So I went from work on the brain to major crush on the brain (for Jose, that is… not Alex), to… something else. Something that grabbed my heart and squeezed. I waited for the stranger and Jose to finish negotiating the time he would return and the amount it would cost, and when the stranger finally looked at me, I smiled. And then I went into the house, went into the bathroom, closed the doors, and balled my eyes out. How stupid I felt knowing that if Jose were to walk up on me right now with my swollen, blotchy face and, with sincere concern in his eyes, were to ask me what in the world is wrong, I would have to tell him that I’m crying because of that old man he was talking to outside. Best to compose myself now and then later try to explain without bursting back into an all out ugly cry that I saw my Papa Driver in him... I saw a kindness, soft, non-wavering eyes, a wisdom, a talent for seeing a problem and knowing the solution… the solution would be accomplished with his very own hands doing work he has possibly spent his life doing. I wondered if he has ever been underestimated during his life by people who didn’t know him due to humble or meager means but knowing things others can’t even be taught because it takes a lifetime of experience to achieve it. I remember my Papa, the sound of his saw in the basement of their house, the smell of sawdust, the way my feet would be covered in it if I went to the basement to watch him, the deafening sound of the screeching of blades against wooden slabs.  I remember his brown, sun-soaked hands, strong and capable, his tattoos muddled and faded and sometimes hard to make out. I remember his ink pens in his shirt pocket, and I can still remember exactly what they looked and felt like… there were small, black and smooth ones with silver clips on them that slid over his shirt pockets to keep them in place. And he had one that was silver also. I remember his worn out black shoes that he wore every day. I remember watching him talk to people he did work for and saw his sincere eyes, his warm smile, the tenderness and wisdom in his raspy voice, the confidence in knowing how to do a job, his loose fitting pants that hung on him, and, but for the integrity of his belt, would have easily fallen to the floor. I remember his full head of hair falling into his face as he would pull long pieces of wood from the bed of his truck, and I can see him even now grabbing it and slicking it back over his head thanks to the grip of the pomade he called Dippity Doo that he used in the mornings. I don’t know all of these details about this old man speaking Spanish with Jose, but I see a familiarity in his eyes, his expression, his mannerisms, and the texture of his voice, and I see my Papa’s aura, and I feel his presence, and I miss him intensely in this moment. And I know that others know the details about this man that will stay with them long after he is gone. They will miss him and all of his ways and they will think about all the conversations they wish they could still have the way I wish for them with my Papa, particularly now that I’m old enough to really appreciate and make better use of them. 

And thinking about all of this makes me think about how I remember my Papa and who he was to *me*, viewing him through the eyes of a granddaughter, and I also think more and more about who he REALLY was… who he was to himself… his own passions and dreams, what he may have wished for that he never achieved, I wondered about his disappointments and what all in his life didn’t pan out the way he’d planned. He was a WWII Navy vet, afterwards, he married my Grandma, they had 6 kids, his career was a self-employed carpenter, and he was a good cook. But what else was he and what else had he wanted in life? What did he aspire to be when he was a kid? His own father had been missing from his life for many years, seemingly disappearing from the face of the earth when he was young. He grew up with his mother and 2 sisters, and I still have very vivid memories of my great grandmother; I will never see a rose shaped soap without remembering her not-to-be-used, decorative soaps that I can still smell as I type this, a small table with 2 chairs without remembering sitting across from her at her own tiny table as she buttered a piece of toast and spread a thin layer of jelly on it for me, or paper thin skin without remembering the deep bruising of hers in the hospital after her stroke. I wonder what kind of mom she was raising 3 kids on her own… her husband disappeared… what kind of worries and stresses must she have had? And how did all of that leave its mark on my Papa? Are some of these things the reasons he had a propensity to drink? I remember Beer:30 starting in the early evening, and it was just him, a 6 pack, and a salt shaker at the table. Some of my favorite memories of conversations with him occurred with him sitting there with salt on his nose and my grandma counting the minutes between each can of beer. And then he would walk back to his room, singing, and fall asleep in his boxers.

And now this man who will return at 4pm today to do this repair. What is his story? Where is his family? Does his heart ache because they’re far apart or is his heart full because he goes home to them every night? Does he have kids and grand kids? Does his body ache when he finishes his work for the day and do people who hire him treat him with respect and appreciate how much more he knows about their project than they do? Is he doing what he always wanted to do or is he doing what he has to do to survive and provide for his family? What were his hopes and dreams when he was a kid? Do we all wonder about these things when someone we loved seems to show a glimpse of their soul through another person we have never met? Or... maybe it’s just me. Overthinking me.

Before I walked into the house stifling tears as hard as I could, I told Jose, “He is a good person with a good heart. I’m glad he found us.” And the rest… well, it’s right here in this journal entry that I had to stop and immediately type in order to clear my head and get back to work.

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