Irreverent

The usual bunch and a couple of extras met at the bar tonight to drink to our absent friend. The owner of the bar, who is also our regular waiter, had heard the news of her death, and gave us two extra carafes of wine. This means we all ended up well over our usual limits.

When we were leaving he also gave me a hug. The others had gone down the stairs, and I was delayed because I'd been collecting rubber bands from all over the floor. I answered his question about what had happened, as he only knew the barest outline.

I told him the details, stumbling over the Japanese. He looked distressed, and hugged me. It was a chaste shoulder hug, and infinitely comforting.

"Taihen, desu ne," he said. He had tears in his eyes.

Japanese people NEVER hug like that. This is not a hugging culture. I'm guessing he has picked up on our habits. We arrive at the bar one by one, every week, and as each person arrives it's hugs all around. We've been going there for a couple of years now, and he has been there and we always chat with him briefly as we arrive and again as we go. Perhaps he has been watching us. His hug was friendly and sympathetic, natural, and not at all awkward.

But it was a testament to our friend that even the waiter at her once-a-week bar felt so bereft at her untimely death. She was the kind of person who always noticed wait staff. If she was talking when a waiter brought her order she would interrupt herself to smile and thank him or her, and it was never perfunctory. It was always a full eye-contact smile and genuine thank you, from the heart. This was second nature to her. Everybody deserved to be acknowledged.

When I got down the stairs I told the others why I'd been delayed.

"Oh, it's good you talked with him," one of them said. "Of course, he knew her, and deserved to know what happened. He'll miss her, too."

We stood silently on the pavement for a moment.

"You know, that was really kind of him," someone said. "The wine and the hug and all that. What a special guy." Then she added thoughtfully, "He's kind of cute, too, isn't he?"

We all agreed that hmm, yes, come to think of it, he was, wasn't he?

And as we were being so woefully distracted I could almost see our absent friend rocking with laughter at the turn the conversation had taken. A woman who turned irreverence into an art form, at that moment she was RIGHT THERE.



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