A Small World

I wasn't around this past week because I've been out of town for work.

That phrase doesn't sound quite right. It makes me picture the impersonal glass and chrome of airports, rental cars, and conference rooms. In this case, though, it meant something much different: a seven-hour drive across familiar countryside, bitter cups of gas-station coffee in my lap. At the end was a place where I had lived for many years, which I hadn't seen since the spring of 2010. I've always had some strong and mixed feelings about this town.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The part I want to tell now is the simple part, the part about meeting with my boss, who still lives in the town I left. I didn't think our meeting would be simple. I wanted to explain why I had been missing work, to reassure her that I wasn't just losing interest or, conversely, battling some deadly disease. I wasn't sure how much to say or how to say it. I just knew that this conversation was one that would be best to have in person.

She didn't know the whole story about my years of infertility treatments, three months of pregnancy, or two weeks of miscarriage. She DID know about my breakup and, therefore, had probably assumed that parenthood was now the last thing on my mind. How to bring the subject up?

I didn't have to worry. As soon as we sat down at the restaurant for lunch, we fell right into talking about the subject that was foremost on her mind: the recent loss of someone dear to her. It had been painful and awful for everyone involved. Two months later, she was still in shock. I knew the feeling: desperately wanting not to think about something so painful, but knowing that for now it is the ONLY thing, so needing to think and talk about it anyway.

My boss (I’ll call her E.) asked about the time I spent volunteering with hospice. It was something I did briefly years ago, partly as a way to honor my grandfather (the one in my last post), who had done the same thing himself. I had no great insights to share. I hadn't changed the course of anyone's life or death. I just showed up when I could to change the sheets, hold cups of drinking water to dry lips, and sit with families in the kitchen, keeping watch. That's all I could do with E. We just sat together at our little table as the snow drifted past outside.

We talked about grief, of all things. She seemed grateful to be able to talk about it, and frankly, so was I. It felt real. Then slowly and without any false cheer, the conversation turned toward a baby who had just been born into her family. This was the time; it was clearly my turn.

I told her that the main focus of my personal life lately has been on having a child. No puzzlement from her, just a nod. Then she told a story that blew me away. She mentioned another one of her long-time employees, a woman I had met a few times over the years, and said, "I don't think I'm speaking out of turn here, because she has always been open about it. Around the time when she first started working for me, she was single. Circumstances in her life had just worked out that way, but she really wanted to be a mother and was running out of time. So she had her son with the help of a sperm donor. That was 18 years ago. She met and married her husband later on."

I was dumbstruck. Not only was E already familiar with the concept of single mothers by choice, but she had already hired one, ANOTHER one, back when almost no-one had heard of such a thing! Even in a company as small as mine, I would not have to be the first after all. I would not have to be the odd one out.

I had teared up a little before, when we talked about grief, and now I felt it happening again. I told her a few more details, but not a lot; there was no need to say much. She got it. She just got it.

Again I thanked her for allowing me to work flexible hours recently. It's one of my few perks. As I said, it's a very small company, so we've never had paid health care or even paid days off. But I wouldn't want to work anywhere else, and this meeting—this reminder that we are people to each other first, and business roles second—was a lovely reminder of why.