Baggage

We all bring along a certain amount of baggage on this trip. Some of it can be from a past we don’t quite remember or didn’t know. This weekend I learned a little about how to stow that kind of baggage.

On Saturday we were at the wedding reception of a beautiful young woman who once worked with my wife. There were several other people there who had worked at that same company. Naturally, they enjoyed the reunion as well as the reception, introducing spouses and swapping stories. One particular man in the group was especially gregarious, and just as popular.

Later in the evening, after the toasts, when the dance floor had started filling up, my wife leaned over and told me something that absolutely devastated me.

She said she had a funny story about the popular guy. Apparently, he had always been as “social” as he was tonight. One day, not long after she had gone to work for the company, he came by her desk and asked if she had a dollar; he really needed a soft drink. This was when we were really tight on money, she told me. Back when she had to tell the kids they couldn’t go to McDonald’s. She had a dollar, but It was the only one she had. You can guess how the story ended: she gave him the dollar anyhow.

I don’t know what my face showed, but I chuckled with her for a moment. Then, thankfully, one of girls in the group asked her join a dance line. She never saw that my eyes were welling with tears. I took the opportunity to go out into the hall and then outside into the night air. Trying to think it though, I finally realized the most important thing about her story. It wasn’t that we had been that poor and I didn’t know. It was what she called it: a “funny” story.

She had put it behind her. And that’s what I had to do. We can’t change the past. We can only work on our futures.