MISTAKEN IDENTITY:

Yesterday, Chaz and I went to WalMart. That in and of itself isn’t a big deal.

However, it’s what happened there that is the real story. But first, a little background:

Chaz is a widower, having lost his wife some three years or so ago to cancer. He has made no secret of the fact that she was the love of his life. When he talks about her, which isn’t often, he speaks with kindness, with admiration, with love. She is someone that I would have liked as a friend, and Chaz has told me that she would’ve liked me.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when this happened at WalMart…

I was looking for sunscreen to put on my face to keep it from getting sunburned in these hot temperatures (I’m also prone to rosacea on my face, and exposure to sunlight doesn’t help that either). Chaz went to find someone to help me out. When we found the sunscreen we were looking for, Chaz was talking to the WalMart gal, and I was freaking out over the fact that these little tubes of sunscreen were in the neighborhood of $10! The cheaper ones were on the other side of the display, and Chaz called me over there. However, he called me by one of his late wife’s nicknames.

This is the first time in the 4 months we’ve known each other that this has happened, and I didn’t even get upset. In fact, it piqued my curiosity. Since the WalMart gal was still talking to Chaz, I waited until she left to ask him if he called me what I think he called me.

“Did you call me [late wife's nickname]?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Was that one of your pet names for her?”

“Yes,” he replied.

Then he apologized for the mix up.

I told him it was okay, that I understood.

I was warmed by the fact that he had let his guard down enough to make the error. He is a very intensely private man, and even with me, he keeps a tight lid on his emotions. So something as significant as his forgetting, just for the briefest of moments, that I’m me and not her, tells me a lot about him.

And her.

She was a very lucky lady, and, I think she knew it, too.

=====

TWENTY YEARS AGO:

Not that I sit around all day thinking about things from my past, but I did think of this…

Twenty years ago this summer, we lived in Augusta, Georgia.

We (me, Jon, Daniel and Jeff) had moved there the previous February when Jon got stationed at the Navy Detachment at Fort Gordon. I was 24 years old at the time.

We left California, where Jon and I both grew up, not knowing that we’d never live there again. He hasn’t been back since then. I went back a few times to visit my parents, attend my sister’s wedding, and in October of 1999, my father’s funeral. Since then, my mother has moved here to Oklahoma, so there is really no reason to go back. Not even for things like high school reunions.

Though I wish I was able to go to see my friend Cynthia once more before she passed away this past June 29th.

I’ve lived in several states since I left “Sunny Southern California”, and I think I’m going to be in Oklahoma a while. It’s too expensive to live where I grew up in Orange County (don’t you DARE call it “The O.C.”!) anyway. I miss what it was when I was growing up. Now progress has taken over and nothing is the same.

But, I’ll always have my memories of what it was. Back in the day…

That’s all from where I sit on the Big Blue Couch.