It had been a long and full day of being professional, of being with others who either confirmed what Mickey and I already knew, or shared with us what we hadn’t known before.
Now, and as dusk of yet another winter day fell on downtown New York, we left the sidewalk on 42nd Street and walked down a flight of stairs to the restaurant below. Greeting us was instant warmth, neatly set tables, and soft lighting. In the middle of the room a fireplace crackled with a real fire along with a few sparks and wisps of smoke.
We settled in, then slowly ate not an elegant meal, but the kind that seems to satisfy the soul as well as the tummy, says all is well with you even if the world is less blessed with that virtue.
That’s when Mickey looked at me and told me he wouldn’t have missed the trip for anything, that he never thought he would ever see New York City, that he had learned much from the people with whom we had visited, that all of it had sort of left him speechless, and that he couldn’t thank me enough for having brought him along.
Although he was acting normally, I could sense those words hadn’t come easily, and that despite what he said, he had been affected in a way not yet revealed.
I’d known about the trip a few weeks before that, a necessary visit with an audio-visual producer we had contracted for an important project. Although a draftsman, Mickey was bent enough in the creative direction to make him a recent and useful part of our graphic design staff. If he went with me, I could arrange for us to visit at least two prominent commercial art shops. For the first time in his life he would be around those transforming mere ideas into highly effective visual impressions. Mickey welcomed my invitation, but said he would give me a definite answer later.
As the trip date neared, I reminded him again that I needed to know so I could make reservations. More days passed, and still receiving no answer, I told him I couldn’t wait any longer, that I had to know by the following day. The next morning, he said yes.
To fast forward, as we finished dinner that Thursday evening, those few words from him proved my judgement had been correct, that the experience was leaving a solid imprint, the kind that might fade but never goes away. Not until we were on the flight home the next day, however, did he reveal the rest of the story.
We were passing over the mountains of southwestern Virginia when Mickey turned away from the window and began an apology for having taken so long to give me his answer.
It was all about his mother, he said. His parents had led a sometimes uncertain and hardscrabble but always confined life. Yes, their world had been disrupted by the forces that affect everyone, but in the main, it was the same as it had always been—God-fearing souls living a lifetime among friends and neighbors of longstanding while being firmly committed to work and family. Not only was the unknown not too far away, so was the fear that always went with it.
His mother believed if Mickey went to New York, something dreadful would happen to him. He would be mugged or even killed by some crazy person or a hellbent street gang, a senseless happening she would never be able to understand, much less accept. At the same time, Mickey was torn between his mother’s deep-seated concerns and his desire to learn more about his profession.
In the end, however, she relented, resigning herself to accept what she realized she couldn’t and maybe shouldn’t control, but with a deep fear of what she thought would be the likely outcome.
To many, her stance would have been considered grossly unreasonable. In truth, however, it reflected how she viewed the rest of the world of which she had limited knowledge and understanding. Also coming into play were her powerful motherly instincts that called for protecting her son regardless of his age.
A few days after we got back, Mickey told me how glad and relieved his mother was that he had made it back home, her fears unrealized. Far more telling, however, is that with tear-filled eyes, she told him how happy she was that he’d made the trip.
We never act alone. In the simplest of ways, we touch lives, and their lives touch ours.
