Life is God’s novel.
Let him write it!
- Isaac Singer, Author
“Ni Hao,” I said when he glanced at me across the room.
“Ni Hao Ma?” he responded.
“Wo hen hao,” I answered, and we both smiled.
The twinkle in his eye acknowledged my gesture of respect and
awareness that I had all but exhausted the extent of my Mandarin vocabulary!
Dinner at the Hunan….
The waitress took my order and my mind drifted to Charlie.
It had been a long time since I had eaten there and I wondered….wondered
whether I might see him…wondered if he still worked…wondered if he were alive…
Out of the corner of the eye a familiar movement caught my
attention. Emerging from kitchen, head slightly down, he moved quietly to a
table, food in hand. I watched him work as I had so many times before. His gentle
and unassuming manner that had drawn my attention so many years before, warmed
my heart once more as he slipped into the room.
When he was finished with his customers, he came over, and
as if we had seen one another the week before, we fell into pleasantly rhythmic
small talk with the refreshment of a warm shower on an early summer’s
morning…the hard drives of our minds returning to the sentence we had been
writing the last time we had seen one another eight years earlier.
He – we – looked older, but ‘felt’ exactly the same as the
uncounted number of times we interacted over the 25 years we had known one
another.
How this happened…
I had returned to Missouri for a one-day event…a wedding I
had promised I would attend.
My friend Keena, an actress from Los Angeles, was from
Jefferson City. We met at a Starbucks in Hollywood on a warm fall afternoon in
2010. When this young woman approached the outdoor table where I sipped a cappuccino,
I knew her instantly.
The recognition came honestly, for I had known, worked for
and admired her mother for many years. In fact, I had met Keena several times decades
earlier. Theressa was my department chairman when I taught at Lincoln
University. A former dancer for the Harlem Ballet, she had moved on to an
academic career. Having not lost her love for the craft, however, she formed
and led a wonderful dance troupe at the university.
Keena....a little girl at the time…played with toys on the
floor of her mother’s office while the young men and women rehearsed.
Occasionally, I watched these amazing young people preparing and this little girl
at play.
There was no doubt, after the first five minutes at that
Starbucks, this young woman and I were going to be friends…and friends we became.
It got better…
Over the next few years, while living in San Diego, Keena
came down from L.A. for one reason or another. Somewhere around the time she
shot a film in San Diego (A 2013 Los Angeles subway thriller called ‘Red Line’)
I met Ajamu, her boyfriend.
Keena also produces and puts on shows – one woman and other
ensembles. Every time a new project came, she invited to come, but each time
some work conflict got in the way. I did, however, follow with delight her
performances on YouTube.
When it appeared she and Ajamu were serious, I told her I
would do my very best to come to her wedding no matter what.
“No matter what” happened Saturday, Ma 2nd at La
Maison event center near Jefferson City, and it was a glorious affair. The
nuptials were performed outside and the day could not have appeared with more
splendor. Thressa and Kenny, beautiful
and handsome, were radiant with parental pride, as were Mr. and Mrs. Frazier,
Ajamu’s parents. I arrived at the site
an hour or so early, watched with bursting heart, and after a few hugs and
kisses after the ceremony, headed for St. Louis a satisfied and contented fellow.
It was, by now, nearly 6PM (the wedding getting a bit of a
late start by 4:30 or so) and I was hungry. Keena had, with the directness and
enthusiasm of her mother, invited me to stay for the dinner, but I knew the
drive back would get me into St. Louis after dark, and said I should really
head out.
Maybe because I was on automatic pilot heading into
Jefferson city, I took an exit as if I were going to our old home on Kansas
Street…maybe because I was thinking about what an amazing couple Keena and
Ajamu were…maybe because I was supposed to be there, I found myself on Missouri
Blvd., passing the Hunan Restaurant. I was a bit hungry, maybe a bowl of hot and sour soup would fill the bill. I pulled in the small parking lot (forgive me Keena).
I was tired and was really only thinking about the drive east
and getting to the airport and a good night’s sleep, before getting up at 5AM
(3AM Arizona time) for an early morning flight home…it was one of those things
that just happens.
So in I went, and there he was, my old friend Charlie!
It was a brief stop and then back on the road with a cup
overflowing from the day.
Blessing big and
small…
The New York Times does a series called: “36 hours in
<name the city>” providing folks on short and busy schedules, memorable
things they might see or do.
My 36 hours in Missouri were more than memorable.
Friday evening, I spent evening with Ray and Sue, two folk
for whom I have the greatest of affection.
Saturday morning, Lizzie and Judy, old and cherished friends, made time
for a bite of breakfast.
The wedding was amazing, and that short visit with Charlie
capped the visit for me, exceeding anything I might have done with the same
amount of time in some other place on the planet.
I tucked in to the hotel at 8:30PM, and for the final few
moments of consciousness left in the day, I wondered at events that have gifted
my life. As I felt myself drift away into the Netherlands of sleep, I felt the touch
from the hand of God reminding me of the blessings of the days complete and the ones yet to come...
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