“He called my name and my heart stood still…”

In a night–shrouded parking–lot, on his last day at the job, he shakes my hand.

He’s 15+ years younger than I and he never knew all he was capable of doing.

He shakes my hand with a firm yet gentle grip, saying:

“Knowing you was life–changing.”

I never see him again.

 

 

She thanks me over AIM, when she realizes she’s lost 40 pounds.

She was the one that hit the gym daily, pushed past every bad habit and counted calories with Germanic efficiency.

But she thanks me, just the same.

I tell her:

Don’t thank me; you earned it.

To which she replies:

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

 

 

Once I’m out of earshot, my black co-worker hears the customer call me a profiling racist.

He rebukes her sharply, saying [as he later related to me]:

“Don’t you dare say that.

I’ve worked with him for a while and he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.”

Looking me in the eye, he admits:

“I was offended for you.”

 

 

It seems I’m a better Roman Catholic than I thought I was.

I’ve become “Christ–like” as I was commanded to be.

In the part of the world that is my “kingdom”:

I’m at the top of the heap.

Yet, at the bottom of the pile.

A “witness to the Truth”.

The Alpha.

And—

Ω