David McElroy

The company next door to my office moved last week, so I had to say goodbye to some people I’ve gotten to know pretty well.

When I arrived back at the office late in the day last Friday, I stopped to see how their move was going. Laura was the only one left in the office and she was loading her car with the last things from her desk. She was exhausted and she stopped to chat. Then I told her something I hadn’t planned to say.

“I’m going to miss you,” I told her. “Of all the people who’ve worked here over the years, you’ve been my favorite. This might sound strange, but it’s because you’re a really good person. I just want you to know that I can tell that about you.”

She was flattered and happy. She thanked me for telling her. The rest of our conversation just confirmed what I already thought about her. I walked away feeling glad that I had admitted what I’d seen in her.

I’ve been thinking about that conversation ever since then. What about Laura struck me strongly enough that I felt like telling her that I saw her as a “good person”? I wasn’t sure at first. But then it hit me.

It’s not that she’s perfect. She’s a pretty ordinary person. It’s simply that standards of morality, ethics and decency have fallen so far that a “good person” really stands out by comparison.

And that’s alarming to me.

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I don’t even know her name. We might have exchanged a few dozen words over the last five or six weeks. I know nothing about her. Not really.

But something about this woman’s presence — her gaze, her intensity, her confidence — makes me feel as though she sees me. She knows me. She is fully present.

This young woman works at a specialty butcher shop where I’ve started going each Friday to buy beef for weekend grilling. For her, I’m just another customer. But she has a habit — or maybe a talent — that makes her unforgettable to me.

When she looks at me, she is fully present.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this experience ever since I first encountered her. It’s not romantic. It’s not a feeling that I’m special to her. But everything about her presence reminds me of how unusual this behavior is today.

Most people make us feel unseen. They make us feel almost ignored, as though we don’t matter. But this woman somehow knows how to give a stranger a gift.

It’s the gift of being fully seen. She is giving the gift of her full presence.

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What will be left of me when my body has turned to dust?

I’ve been thinking about this lately. I’m not being morbid. I expect to be around for decades to come. But I’ve felt a growing sense of unease in the last few years — a sense that I’m running out of time to start work on the things I was put on this planet to do.

I’m feeling a sense of urgency to do a lot of things that matter to me — things I never realized until now would matter so much. I think that’s why I feel so driven to write as much as I’ve been writing for the last year.

I’ve realized in the last year or so how much I need to make art that will survive me. It’s not so I’ll be famous, though. It’s not about making a lot of money or achieving some flashy success. It has nothing to do with success or money or fame.

It’s about being able to do some work that might matter to someone else after I’m gone. It’s about being able to make human lives — at least a few of them — more peaceful and joyful and loving.

I want the chance to reach out to people from beyond the grave one day and say, “See this? I made it. This contains what I needed to tell you. I think these ideas can change you and help you live a better life. These things are important to me and I hope they’ll be important to you.”

The clock is ticking for me.

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