Yesterday, my son and I went away on a one-night trip. We had just checked into our hotel room. I sat down on the bed and opened my phone to find a ton of unread texts from my friends waiting.
One of our other friends, one of my best friends growing up, is very sick.
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I am still in shock.
Having gone through my mother-in-law’s cancer, I’m no stranger to having to compartmentalize.
So, I pulled it together; cordoned off that news for a few hours; and was present with my son for dinner and then a concert.
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I stepped out of the room to get coffee this morning and there waiting just outside the compartment I managed to put it in for the night was the news of my friend’s diagnosis.
I’m in shock. I’m devastated. And maybe worst of all, I’m familiar.
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And now I’ll pull it together and compartmentalize again long enough for breakfast and a drive home.
And then at some point this afternoon, I’m going to go off somewhere by myself and just sit and cry.
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If we were a thoughtful society, this pandemic would have taught us that forced commutes to office parks - which are ecological disasters - is a terrible practice.
We turn green spaces into heat-absorbent pavement farms so people can unnecessarily go to offices they don’t need.
The amount of chemicals we dump on office park landscaping to make its ornamental green spaces look pretty is a sin.
The amount of land we consume with largely unused parking lots, also a sin.
And every large company in the country just learned firsthand, they don’t need them.
One of my secret getaways during the pandemic was an office park that was largely shuttered due to COVID.
Here, at the foot of the property, is a grassy area with no actual purpose. It has no path, no use, no proximity to offices.
That little Giving Garden - those little rows of raised beds tended by strangers - produces 70,000 pounds of fresh produce a year.
Since its founding, it has provided fresh, organic produce to over 200,000 families.
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Fresh produce is expensive.
Food-insecure families cannot afford the makings for a salad. They can’t afford a trip to the farmer’s market. They can’t afford local summer corn or fresh fruit.
When a food budget tightens to the point of choking, fresh produce is one of the cuts.
My son played his last regular season game of soccer today; and I’ve had a pint or two of Guinness.
So it’s about to get very Hallmark movie in here very fast. You have been forewarned. If you strap in for the ride, ya gets what ya gets.
Anyway, let’s proceed.
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It wasn’t my son’s last game with this team. They have a tournament left in June.
Today was just the last match of the regular season.
Surely that couldn’t be enough to send a grown-ass man into a Guinness-fueled nostalgia thick as marmalade.
And yet here we are.
2/
I had that June tourney in my back pocket. That was my buffer. I wouldn’t need to get all emotional today, you see, because it wasn’t really my son’s last game of the year.
I fully believed that. I was good.
This wasn’t going to be the Day of Unbearable Sentimentality.
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