Elle Potter

baby is this love for real?

Four years ago yesterday, my friend Matty very unexpectedly passed away.

I met Matty one summer, a friend of a friend’s brother who sat at the bar during happy hour of the restaurant I was working at.  He was cute and fun to be around and thought I was, too – so obviously we were fast friends.

Sometimes Matty would ask to wear my thumb ring on his left ring finger, so we could pretend we were married.  He was in love with my little sister and was always asking me if he could ask her out.  I would pretend to get angry and slap his shoulder, saying “She’s sixteen, Matty!”

“Come on, Elle,” he’d say, twisting my thumb ring on his own finger.  “I just want to take her out and hold her hand.”

Once, when Matty was having a bad day, I picked him up at his house after work.  He got in my car, smelling of the best cologne.  He always smelled so good.  Anyway, we went to iHop or something like that and he drank coffee to sober up and I ate hashbrowns with Chalula.  When the check came, he looked at me and told me he didn’t want to go home.  Not yet.

We decided to get a hotel room, not for any sort of funny business, but just for a change of scenery.  Matty pretended we were an out-of-town couple, on the road for a cross-country roadtrip to wherever-we-wanted.  The hotel clerk raised his eyebrow at me when I stumbled at the question of Matty’s last name.

Up in the room, we watched movies and History Channel documentaries, jumped quietly on the beds, alternately singing Head Automatica and making animal noises at each other.  We played Truth or Dare with all truths, laying upside down on the bed and confessing secrets to each other and the ceiling.

“What if I never find love?” Matty asked me.

“What do you mean, ‘what-if-I-never-find-love?’”

“What if I never get married or have a girlfriend or fall in love?”  Matty was always worried about that.  Maybe that’s why he loved pretending like my thumb ring was his wedding ring.

“That’s not all that love is, my sweets.  Seriously, you know it’s not, right?”  I readjusted the pillows so I could look at him.  “What do you think this is right now?  This is love, Matty.  Look around you.  Look at the people in your life – your friends, your family – you are surrounded by love.  Don’t underestimate the power of love just because you don’t have a girlfriend.  Don’t dismiss this love because it’s not the love you’re imagining.”

Matty looked steadily back at me, through his long eyelashes and quiet eyes.  I can still remember each of the random freckles on his face, as if even they were listening intently to me.

“I love you, Matty.  Please know that.  And you can keep searching for love in a million different places, but never forget that I will always love you.  The love that surrounds you now is always there – you’re never alone and you’re never not loved.”  We fell asleep holding hands; not in a romantic way, rather as a reminder that we were there for each other.

The year or so before Matty passed away, we didn’t see much of each other.  But in the middle of the night sometimes, I would get random text messages saying “I love you” and phone calls with long, silly voicemails telling me how much he missed my awesome hair.  I like to think that it was the moments when he was worrying about finding love that he would remember me and be reminded…

The day after I heard the news, I was working at Bed Bath and my Butthole (I hated that place).  My co-workers were completely unsupportive and my boss had even told me she may not be able to find coverage for me later that week so that I could go to the funeral.  I was pissed, near-tears, and working at the ridiculously long-lined Customer Service desk, dealing with irritated customers and their busted blenders.

One man came to the counter for a refund.  I fumbled around with the register, getting more and more frustrated at all the wrong buttons I was pushing.

“How’s your day?” he asked, completely aware that I was not in a good mood.

“Pretty awful, to tell you the truth,” I replied through my teeth, not looking up from the return receipts.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”  I could feel him looking at me, formulating his next thought.  “Why’s that?”

Getting annoyed at both the register and this guy for asking me so many questions, I gritted my teeth and tried to be civil.  I was surprised when I heard myself share. “Well, actually, my buddy died two days ago and no one here cares enough to cover my shift to go to the funeral.”

“Oh, shit…” I finally looked up from the receipts and the register and made eye contact with the fellow.  He looked at me with genuine kindness and concern.  “I am so sorry.  How did it happen?”

I found myself sharing more of the story with this man, so thankful for someone who cared.  The line began to grow behind him but I was in no rush.  Dozens and dozens of customers had come to my counter already that day but no one had connected with me, no one had shown compassion to me, no one had genuinely wished me a nice afternoon – no one gave a shit.  And so neither did I.

But this guy – this guy recognized I needed a little love and needed to be seen.  He told me about losing his two-year-old daughter over the holidays the year before to Leukemia.

“It’s hard to lose someone you love,” he said, putting his refund receipt back into his wallet and standing there, in no hurry to leave me.  “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you so much for talking to me,” I sputtered, feeling my eyes fill up with tears.  “It really means a lot.”

He reached across the counter and took my hand, like a half-handshake, half-embrace.  “Thank you for talking to me.”

And then I remembered – love is all around.  It shows up in different ways, across different faces and radiating from different eyes.  When love leaves one place, it subsequently shows up in hundreds more, like refracted light bouncing off broken glass.  And in the darkest of places, love shines even more brilliantly.  I didn’t get any act of love or support from my co-workers like I had hoped for, but the random act of love and kindness that a stranger shared with me was much more powerful, potent and real than I could have asked for.

Matty inadvertently taught me the most important and undeniable quality of love – that it’s more than just finding a husband or wife and settling down and having babies.  That love is truly an incredible feat, an unstoppable act and an undying connection to those around you who never really leave.

Still, to this exact breath, I very intentionally carry him in an unwavering piece of my heart.  My thumb ring continues to be a sort of “wedding ring” in my mind – a remembrance that I am always connected by love and through love to the people I love most.

I love you Matty.  Let’s dance party soon.