Chuck

His name was Chuck. I will tell you upon seeing him that I judged him. He opened the door for my family as we walked into Waffle House this morning. He was kind enough, and I didn't think about him because of his kindness. I judged him only in the sense that I was a coward for not going up to him and introducing myself. Why? It was his look from the counter on my family and the one next to me. It was his smile. It was more because of his eyes.

I've always been an observer. I spent more time in school sitting in the back because I wanted to see everyone in front of me. I wanted to see the glances across the room when the teacher turned around. I wanted to see the yawns and leans over the desk when pencils fell. Still to this day, I normally sit facing the door in restaurants. I love to see couples come in, the dads struggling with rambunctious boys, single women who look like more concerned with their phones than their meal. Delcina and I, waiting to catch a flight to Houston sat in the airport once and just watched people. We made stories about them. We chuckled at the reunions of couples that didn't match and kids who didn't seem appreciative of the person walking down the runway.

In one of my writing courses, probably my freshman or sophomore year in college, our professor gave us these well-glossed photographs of people. A woman sitting on a bench, a homeless man, kids running through a sprinkler. We were to write compositions about those pictures, an essay about these people's lives. I'm sure then the professor, upon reading our papers, found this a futile exercise in just how naive and immature we were as people and especially as writers. I don't remember what I wrote or the photograph I used, but when I used to write fiction I frequently tried to place myself in other people's shoes. I wanted to wear their lines on my face. I wanted to feel their pain and love and depression.

On my first night of my Emmaus walk, I brought this imagery and the deconstruction of people's faces into that church. I sat among the 30 or so men, most of them white and silently judged them. I pegged them as country boys, white trash, biker trash and hillbillies. I saw them as stuffy button-shirts and academia snobs. I firmly felt I had nothing in common with these men and they surely saw me as that minority guy they don't want moving in their neighborhoods.

And I've always felt this way. When I moved to Ohio, I moved into a small town where just about every business was located on, where else, main street. I would pull beside people on the road and they'd wave. I wasn't used to that. You pull up next to someone in Houston, they give you the finger. I would routinely go along with the misconception that I was from the Middle East (typically Libya for whatever reason) or that I somehow actually celebrated Cinco de Mayo by doing something other than drinking a Dos Equis.

And so I'm back to Chuck. The couple next to us brought in three boys. I too was amused by the high-chaired lad whose cheeks were covered in pudding, and the one son who was eyeing the kitchen. While I looked on at them, at my own kids, so was Chuck. Now I knew his name form the work uniform he was wearing. And it's here that I started my inner story, that judgement.

I took the work clothes and grimy hands that he was a hands-on, mans man. I don't know if it's a deep down resentment of these blue jean clad men who can erect houses in hours or the guy who can repair a motor with a wrench. I am not the working mans man.

I took the expression on his face as something wholeheartedly more. Was this a man who raised his own children? Did Chuck ever have these sit-down moments with his own kids? So here I am answering these questions and painting the picture of a lonely grandpa without anyone share breakfast with. By the end of the meal, all I wanted to do, was shake the guys hand and talk about his life. I wanted to know if his son ever talked to him, or how many wives he had (there goes my judgement again). But I didn't.

I'm thankful I get to share my meals with my loved ones, worship with friends and my nights with my loving wife. One thing my dad and step dad both possess is that willingness to be secluded. My dad is perpetually alone in the house he was raised in. I wonder if the walls ever seem smaller to him. Do the sounds of the past ever keep him awake? My step-dad has remarried. We talk infrequently but when we do I hear the voice of the man who raised me. I know both men's efforts have resulted in me. Their like the Chucks who follow me around even when I don't know it, holding the doors for me, smiling down on my kids.