The cheese stands alone

And so it was that I found myself in the city of brotherly love last night, telephone jammed against my ear as hard as I could push it, in a vain attempt to hear the voice on the other end of the line a little more clearly as I sat surrounded in a pub with fifty or sixty of my closest chums.

It was near 11PM and I was two (Imperial, of course) pints into my evening. My manager called to inform me that we had another round of layoffs that afternoon. The remainder of my group was terminated. I am now the last man standing in my department. Everyone else has been terminated.

Humm.....I can feel the clock ticking louder and louder. Must perform at a higher level, must sell something, sell anything, must...must...must...

The next one out the door is me. Wonder how long I really have before the axe in my direction.

Parking lots

I recall getting out of the car at a shopping mall one day with my two daughters. The eldest must have been around 12 and the youngest around 8. The youngest automatically reached out and grabbed my hand as we walked through the parking lot towards the mall. The eldest stuck her hands in her pockets and walked a little faster to stay ahead of us.

The youngest asked why the eldest wasn’t holding my hand. I explained that one day, she too would be too old to want to hold my hand, and that she would be able to walk through the parking lots on her own without me. The youngest told me that she would always want to hold my hand, no matter how old she was.

Fade ten or eleven years. The youngest is now living in a college dormitory. I feel like part of me has been ripped off and hidden away.

Now I sit here in our empty house, wishing that I had her hand to hold in mind for just one or two more trips across the mall parking lot. Perhaps she doesn’t need my hand to hold on to anymore, but perhaps, just perhaps, I need her hand to hold on to once in awhile.