Most of us have known great people in our lives, and regretted that we didn’t know just how great they were while they were alive. We sit back long after the funeral and say “Shit, if I had just realized how much he knew, I could have learned so much more, I could have appreciated them, I could have saved myself so much trouble and pain”

I’m just coming now, in my middle life, to realize that this is a gift that God gives us. This is a lesson taught to all, and learned by the lucky.

I knew a man like that. At the time I knew him he wasn’t a great man to me, just another old (same age I am now) man. Just another joe who lived in the suburbs and got up every morning and went to work, came home in the evening, had dinner, had a beer , watched the hockey game, went to bed, and repeated it ad infinitum. His job was interesting, I’ll admit, but he was an old man, past his prime, waiting to die (as far as I could see. Today I see it differently). That’s not to say I didn’t like him, far from it. I liked him a lot, and we had some laughs, but I never really took the opportunity to get to know him, and he didn’t really take the opportunity to get to know me. Neither of us were going in the same direction, we were of different backgrounds and generations. We existed in the same space for awhile, and then parted. Our relationship was a good one, he was funny and kind, quiet and friendly, as far as I remember. But we shared our time and left one another. I was surprised at the depth of emotion I felt when I learned of his death.

He had qualities I didn’t understand at the time and wasn’t smart enough to admire or appreciate, he had skill, he had the admiration and love of the people hw worked with from day to day, and he had guts. Most importantly of all, he had humility and modesty. He was a good man who left good children in the world when he died. He left a wife who had been well seen to, and was provided for, he left a legacy of friends and acquaintances that loved and admired him, and he left a lasting mark on me, as I’m sure he did on many that don’t realize it.

A man like him is a gift. Not because a guy like me could or learn from him at the time, but because twenty years later I can look back, after he’s gone, and finally understand what he could have taught me. I can look back and know what I lost.

It hurts. It’s supposed to. I look back in time and wish I had been smart enough to ask questions. I wish I had been smart enough to watch closer. I wish I would have listened to the stories, committed them to memory, and passed them on.

There is the gift. The gift of knowing that he was great, and I missed it. The gift is the lesson to keep my eyes open, because great men and women walk amongst us every day wearing the costumes of mediocrity.
 
 
 
 
 

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