Triumph Over Everything Else

A photograph like this just wills itself into being.

Several months ago I heard from a co-worker that a forklift designer at Hammerslag was on medical leave. She'd reached out to him for a work thing and he kinda email-blurted his situation. She knew how fond I am of this guy, so she told me. And I reached out to him and said hi, and can I be helpful. And his situation is rather dire, but I now have the pleasure of his company on occasion. It's amazing what happens when you raise your hand. You get to spend time with people you'd always wanted to know better.

So this is how I came to know this restaurant, which is situated in the town where he lives. It's his favorite. Sometimes I join him there. And now I know that he will always order the same thing (chicken tikka masala) and doesn't want to share naan, which is fine because I always order the same thing (bengan bartha) and don't care about sharing. Plus our favorite naan is amazing (it contains chopped chicken, cashews, chopped maraschino cherries, anise, coconut flakes and raisins) and why would you want to share when you can get two orders? And then he blurts out a bunch of stuff at me and doesn't let me talk and apologizes and I'm just happy to hear all his stuff. He doesn't seem to pass judgment that I work in a forklift factory and am not really a forklift-ist.

Yesterday mrguy, who was going to join us, was felled by a hideous migraine. I really wanted to stay home and take care of him, but he said he'd be sad if I didn't go have dinner with our friend. So I did. I took our friend some banana bread (turns out he loves banana bread), and for the first time we ate in the main dining room of the restaurant.

Let me back up and say that when I go there and say I'm meeting my friend, they know exactly who he is. I see his interactions with the owner, where they offer to send him food and they really want to take care of him. These people are the *dearest* with him. And he's straight up with them, this time telling them that it's back but he's fine. Which is the truth. His fucking cancer is back and he feels no effects but he's gotta deal with it.

So we're sitting there and gossiping and as the sun's angle changes I see that this place has a retractable roof and the weather is perfect and the paint on the buildings next door is amazingly peeled and beautiful.

I caught this picture which, as I said, made itself. And a great one of my friend pointing at the ceiling. I've never seen a photo of him so happy, and it's my job to look at photos of people I work with.

He and I talked about people at work and work methodology and disposition of assets for people like us who don't have children. He wants to donate his awards back to the company, because without him he wouldn't have developed those projects. We couldn't believe we were discussing this, but if it gave him some relief I'm happy.

 

I hope we have many more dinners and that the awards stay with him a very long time.