Popeye the Sailor Man...Revisited

The Imaginary Conversation...Later

I guess I should have learned long ago never to say never. Certainly never say that you have seen the last of a person who passes through your life even briefly. I was reminded of that the other day when I was shopping at The Galleria on Westheimer. I was over at Nordstroms to buy a pair of shoes. Nordstroms probably has the best men's shoe department in all of Houston.

I had just entered the store on the third level and was headed for the down escalator, when someone from my right called out, "Excuse me. Are you Jack Tanner?"An attractive young woman, with a very professional look to her, approached me.

"Yes, I am," I replied. "Do I know you?"

"You probably don't remember me. It was some time ago that we met. You were having lunch at Cafe Express on West Gray. There were no other tables and you allowed me to share your table with you."

"My goodness! I do remember you. I have often wondered what happened to you, after that." I was frantically searching in my memory for her name. I am really terrible at remembering people's names. Then, totally amazed at myself, I did remember. "Your name is Laura, right?"

"Yes. You remembered my name." She seemed genuinely pleased that I did.

"My dear, by any chance, do you have some time for us to grab a cup of coffee? I would very much like to hear what has become of you."

She smiled that lovely smile that I remembered so well. "I would be delighted."

We walked past the escalators to the restaurant that was at the other end of the third floor. It was a very pleasant eatery, decorated in a very art deco style. The hostess seated us.

Our waitress introduced herself and brought some menus. "We won't need a menu, thank you. I already know what I want. I'll have some coffee and a slice of key lime pie, please. Laura, what would you like?"

"Coffee for me also. And please bring me the dessert tray," she told the waitress.

"You know it has been almost ten years since we met. You look like you have come a long way since then. Tell me all about yourself and what you have been doing."

"Where to start?" Laura said mostly to herself. "Okay. After we had lunch that day, I took your advice and began living my life one day at a time. Doing that made my life easier. Maybe, I didn't feel substantially better about myself, but each day I somehow found the strength at least to get through the day. And, after awhile, to get through each week, in one piece"

"And somehow, I got through college and graduated. I received my degree in education and found out that I had a real talent for teaching kids. And I discovered that I had talent for designing curriculum, so in time I became part of the team of teachers who are currently designing the new math curriculum for the district in which I work."

"That is terrific. Do you like what you are doing, professionally?" I asked her.

"Yeah. I really do. I am still a little insecure even now about myself. I have these moments when I question whether anything I do is worth a damn. But I do my best to get past those moments. I have learned just to do the best I can and leave things at that."

"My dear, you are smarter than a lot of people I know. A lot of them never figure that out. Are you still single or have you gotten married?" I asked her.

Again she smiled. "I got married a little over two years ago. And I have a beautiful daughter named Catherine. Here, let me get a picture of her out of my wallet." She rummaged through her purse, pulled out her wallet and found the picture. She handed me the photo.

A smiling, mischievous and very pretty little dark-haired girl looked at me from the picture. She looked like a child who could wrap you around her little finger, with a wink of her eye.

"Congratulations, Laura. So how does it feel to be a mother now?"

She laughed. "I'm thrilled and I'm absolutely terrified. Her I am, this bundle of doubts and fears. I am responsible for shaping and forming another person, and I haven't entirely figured out who I am or what I want for myself. But having her to love and having to make sure she is taken care of, I no longer have very much time to obsess about things like that. And what is so absolutely wonderful is that even if I make a mistake, she still loves me and needs me."

"And your husband... are you enjoying being married?"

The waitress interrupted us, bringing the tray with our coffee, my pie and the desert tray.
Laura surveyed the dessert tray. "I'll take a slice of the chocolate cake, please."
The waitress nodded her head and left to get it.

"I am really very happy in my marriage," she said. "I knew that there were going to be a lot of adjustments the first year that Tom and I were married. But he is really a patient and loving person and he has helped to make the transition into married life much easier than I thought it would be."

"I think that you are indeed very fortunate and I hope that you have as good a life with Tom as I have had with my wife."

"I always end up doing all the talking." She paused. "Do you mind if I call you Jack? I feel like I have known you for my entire life and I have only spent any time with you twice."

"Certainly," I said.

"At any rate, I think I am beginning to understand a lot of what you told me, when we met, about getting through life. Some of it I don't exactly get just yet. But I guess I will, in time. When I look at my daughter, things begin to make a lot more sense. It takes time for a child to develop and grow. That can't be rushed. It is going to take time for me to finally grow up fully and I am just going to have to give it the time it is going to take. So, Jack, do you think I am making progress?" she asked him.

Jack smiled, revealing the pleasure he felt as he looked at this young woman. "You are doing just fine. Just keep doing what you are doing, my dear. If you were my own daughter, I could not be prouder."

Laura blushed just a little and looked down for a moment, trying to compose herself. Once she had done that, she look up at me and said, "You always seem to have a pretty good take on things. Would you answer me a question that has been on my mind lately? When you look back on your life, how do you do that so that you are not a little disappointed yourself or with your life?"

"First of all, let me clarify one thing. I don't always have a good take on every situation. Sometimes, even now, I get overwhelmed and have to do the same thing you're doing. Remember. I told you the last time we met that throughout our lives, we are works in progress. That we are never ever finished. I don't always have an answer or a solution, even for myself."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to digress. As to what you want to know, Laura, that is a very good question. I don't think I really liked who I was or how my life had turned out until I was in my mid 50's. If you recall, I had gone through therapy and while doing that, I was finally able to accept myself for who I am. I also learned that it was important to always keep things in perspective."

I continued, "So what I do now, whenever I start to become disappointed with myself or with my life... when I am tempted to compare myself to other people or compare my accomplishments to those of other people, is to say to myself something like this: 'As a person, I am better off than some people and not so well off as others. Some people have accomplishments greater than mine and some less. Some people are financially better off than I am and I am financially better off than other people. I am who I am. The only person I am competing with is myself. This life is the hand that I was dealt. I have do the best I can with who I am and what I have.' That has become my mantra. I use that mantra to get me through each day. And it seems to work, so I'm going to keep using it."

Laura was very quiet and then told me, "You are an amazing person. You understand so many things that I haven't figured out yet."

I put my hand to my chin, trying to figure out how to respond to that. Even now, praise like that makes me a little nervous. "Laura, I am not all-knowing or all-wise. I am not all that amazing. I am just a guy who has somehow managed to survive the crunch so far. I have just tried to learn from my mistakes. If any one thing is true about me, it is that I have just lived a little bit longer than you have and I have gone through a lot more than you will ever want to. Stick around long enough, kiddo, and you will figure out for yourself everything that I know. They say that every generation gets just a little smarter than the last one and you seem to be living proof of that. Hopefully you will do things smarter than I did and you will have an easier time of it than I have had."

Laura was putting the last piece of chocolate cake into her mouth. She thought a long moment and said to me, "For my sake, I certainly hope that you are right about that."

We had finished our coffee and our dessert. I motioned to our waitress and she came over to our table. "Check please," I asked.

"How much is my part of the bill?" asked Laura.

"Not a thing. Allow me to take care of the bill," I said.

"Thank you very much. You are very kind," she returned.

"It was my pleasure. I am so very glad that we ran into each other and to know that you are doing so well."

"I was my pleasure as well," she said as we shook hands.

"Laura, You are doing just what you should be doing. You don't really need my advice. You seem to have a pretty good head on your shoulders and you are going to figure out things just fine."

"I surely hope I do as well in that regard as you've done," she told me.

"I have absolutely no doubt that you are going to do better than I did. You already have a head start on me."

She smiled, this time easily, and turned to depart. She paused, turned to me and said, "Jack, I want you to meet my family." She went to the counter, wrote down her phone number on a piece of paper and I wrote mine down as well. We exchanged phone numbers.

"I would very much like that. Thank you."

I have always believed that we are destined to meet certain people in our lives. There is something absolutely cosmic if someone enters our life a second time, in a good way. I was delighted that Laura actually wanted to keep in touch with me.

With that, we left the restaurant and went our separate ways.

I was very pleased for Laura. She was on the way to making a genuine success of her life, on her own terms. She was doing work she truly enjoyed and in which she felt real accomplishment. She had a loving family. She already possesses what most people struggle a lifetime to get. Best of all, she still has most of her life still ahead of her. I was almost tempted to be a little envious of her. But I remembered my mantra and caught myself before letting myself give in to the impulse.

I got great pleasure from hearing her story as it has played out so far. I guess I have been around so long and seen one too many personal story out there that has turned out badly. Here's one for the good guys.

[To read the prequel, read my post of May 18, 2006: The Wisdom of Popeye the Sailor Man]