Wednesday, March 16th, 2016
At first it seemed odd my step-dad had no problem with asinine small talk over the phone, but then I realized — not that it wasn’t something I already knew unconsciously — how scripted that kind of conversation is.
I’m on record as hating this way of interacting. I know it isn’t a novel thought — and I imagine few prefer small-talk to other, richer kinds of interaction — but I find it existentially demoralizing. Small talk seems a great way to fill the air without saying anything — you might as well just be saying a string of business words: synergistic, global view, face time, wheelhouse, next-gen. All I can think while shackled to a stranger in this kind of exchange is that I am mortal, and will never get these moments back. That I could be talking about any one of a thousand things that I like to think about with any one of the dozens of people that I love in a way that would make me feel alive.
But Tom can still small talk, for now. About the weather, about sports, about work. And for all of the things I can’t say to him, for all of the things we can’t talk about, for all of the ways we can’t talk — this actually helps to fill the gap. It’s a way to say, “I’m here and I love you. And I’m not going anywhere.” For once, empty bullshitting is a way to send the message that a real conversation couldn’t.
And it helped me to realize what important conversation is, when the stakes are so high. Namely, that important conversation doesn’t exist. That all of the reasons I hated talking about the weather with strangers isn’t because there is something inherently bad about talking about the weather: it’s just that you’re often doing so with strangers, people you don’t care about. That all of the reasons I love talking to the people I do care about — and, by extension, the near-incidental reasons I love and care about the things I do — is because I love being around them, and they love those things.
Conversations, it seems to me right now, are about presence more than words. The simple statement that you’re there, that it doesn’t matter what you say. That when you talk about basketball and weather with someone you care about, what you are really saying is “I love you, and you aren’t alone. You won’t be alone.”
Even if Tom doesn’t realize what’s going on with his health, or with the other conversations that he can’t follow, at the very least he knows that all of his kids are home and next to him, that he’s about to get married, and that he is loved and cared for. He knows that we’re here.
This is a part of a series of essays which I began while my step-father Tom — a good man — was undergoing treatment for particularly aggressive brain cancer. He began experiencing acute symptoms on March 6th, 2016, and passed away nineteen days later.
His family and friends started a college scholarship fund in his memory. If you would like to donate, you can do so at tombroadheadscholarship.org.
Eric.
