A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)

Being a mobile computer repair guy, I had some similar experiences. Two stand out.

We'll call the first Chris K. He was an older gentlemen who could barely walk in a straight line, stooped over so far as he was. But his energy was far greater than that which is body would let him express. He was a writer who usually needed help figuring out something with his latest book, which he was self-publishing.

The computer was tucked into a corner of a large room above his garage where the walls were lined with hundreds of books. This was his lair, his private place where he ruled as king. He told me stories of emigrating from France to the US, becoming a naturalized citizen so that he could join the draft and fight in Vietnam. Of having enough damage done to the right side of his face that he had to have a skin graft, sourced from his buttocks. He told of the joy he had when he invited somebody he didn't like to give him a kiss on the cheek! I would often finish the job and then just listen to his stories for a while until I had to go to the next.

His wife on the other hand was a quiet woman. You could see a twinkle in their eyes when they were together. I admired them for that. I really loved that old fellow. I'd been going to his home, a two story home up on a hill, for about a year.

One day I saw his name on my schedule, and automatically went to his home. But when the car stopped at his driveway, it was empty. Quickly the realization came that something was wrong. It dawned on me that the address on the schedule wasn't his home address.

I did recognize the address, however, and when my brain put the puzzle together, my heart sank.

When I walked into the his room at the assisted living home, I very nearly wept. His once vast library shrank to a small book shelf in a corner. A few belongings were his own, but this was clearly a temporary arrangement, and likely his last home. The most heartbreaking moment though, was when we made eye contact. The fire was gone. The once vibrant man, full of piss and vinegar, was now a broken shell.

Chris's beloved wife had died suddenly, leaving him without a care taker. His children opted to send him to an assisted living home. That was the last time I saw him. I moved away soon after that, and I never knew what happened next, but I didn't need to find out. The outcome was obvious enough.

The look in his eyes that day is still hard to think about, but I am grateful for the chance to have made any modicum of a difference in his life.

Honestly I love the message, but this is just bad writing. The grammar and style are fine, but the narrator and his fare are just cardboard cutouts. The most interesting line in the story is that she was an elevator operator. A snippet of authentic dialog would have gone a long way.

I just listened to a section in the audiobook We Should Hang Out in which the author describes how people in a Blue Zone in Costa Rica hang out in groups outside every evening and have bbq together. Families with neighbors we etc.. It seems so healthy and I want something like that. In the Portland, OR area houses are required to have porches to foster community, but still most of them are to small to be attractive to hang out on. My house has one, but it's smaller than my other outdoor spaces. I was thinking after I listened to it, how to create a front for a potential future home that fosters community like this. We all seem to long for something liked describes here or in the part in Costa Rica, but nobody does it. How much is architecture/city design vs smaller families vs everyone being busy vs other, isolating entertainment?

This is very adorable. Thank you for sharing this story with us today.

Your experience with Chris has extended from you, to us, and I'm grateful to read about it. Thank you for sharing.