Thought Driver: At Least the House was Clean

I was sitting on the left side of a circular table in the middle of a cramped office on a rainy, humid day — the size of an office where the walls feel a little too close. Four chairs surrounded the table, but only two were occupied. Across from me sat my boss, and the two of us were talking budget — numbers, staffing, compromises, the annual ritual of trying to do too much with far too little.

I have this nervous habit when I’m deep in thought. My left hand drifts to the top of my head, fingers scratching like an orangutan trying to solve a puzzle. That’s exactly what I was doing when movement in the doorway caught my eye.

The office door was open to my right. A man stepped into view. On one side of his waist was a gold badge clipped to his belt. On the other rested a black 9-millimeter pistol. It was the Chief of Police of the town where I work. His tone of voice said casual and friendly. The look on his face said something else. My first instinct was simple: leave.

I pushed my chair back and started to stand, assuming whatever brought him there had nothing to do with me. But before I could step away, he stopped me. “No, don’t go,” he said. “I’m here to talk to you.” Words I did not expect to hear.

Once we were alone, he reached behind him and quietly closed the door. The click of the latch sounded louder than it should have. He pulled out a chair and sat across from me while I lowered myself back into mine, confused now, my mind already beginning to race ahead of the moment. What is this about?

He opened a small notebook and looked down at it briefly before speaking. He told me that the Concord Police Department had contacted him and asked that he speak with me personally…face-to-face. Then he said her name. I squinted, trying to place where this was going. “What about her?” He paused. Just for a second. Long enough for something cold to move through me. “I’m sorry to tell you,” he said, “that she is deceased.”

She is my son’s mother. In less mature years, I probably would have called her my “baby mama.” But in that moment, none of the history mattered. Within a second, I thought of my son, and that is when the first pound of my heart hit. Boom. Eyes wide now. Deep breath in. Through the mouth — which is a no-no in stressful situations. When the pressure is high, the air should come in through the nose. Breathe, Michael, went my inner voice.

Stress-free is an interesting place, you know? Without stress, we notice things…maybe even appreciate them. The smell of laundry when it comes out of the dryer. How the grass feels on the bottoms of bare feet. The different body temperature of a hand I held. Water actually does have a taste. When stress hits, the chess pieces start moving in the head again. The green grass goes gray.

That is exactly what happened. The thought of having to tell my 15-year-old son that his mother had died brought an anxiety that could only be measured in decibels. Anxiety so loud, so intense, that it shook my ancestors. Then, like movie clips scattered across an editor’s floor, different versions of how I was going to do this started running through my mind on repeat. Each one had a different beginning. Every single one had the exact same end.

While I was en route to his school, he was preparing to board a bus for his baseball game. Do I have him held from the bus to wait for me to get there? Do I go to the game and pull him off the field? Do I let him play and tell him afterward? Do I wait until we get home? Then it hit me. I love this kid so much that it may hurt me more to tell him than it hurts for him to hear it. Seeing him languish is one thing. Being the one to deliver the news is another. Not one stress. Two.

My decision was to let him play in the game and tell him when he got home. And the reason why traces back to a lesson I learned from a man named Sachio Ashida. A long time ago, in the galaxy of Buffalo, New York, I was a regular at a Judo club. Ashida was the patriarch of the place — an old, wise Japanese man with ties to the sport that included coaching at the 1976 Olympics. He was for real. Every once in a while, he’d come to our club for a guest lesson. When he talked, we listened.

Born in Japan in the 1920s, Ashida was among the few people still alive in the 1990s who could tell us what it was like to be a kamikaze pilot. He knew because he had been one. During World War II, he would shower, shave, and put on his best uniform before waiting for the plane he was prepared to fly to his death. It never happened. The problem with the kamikaze strategy was that Japan eventually ran out of planes, which turned out to be a very good thing for Ashida.

What stayed with me all these years was the way he talked about making sure your uniform was on properly before stepping into battle. It was about respect. It was also about control in the face of fear. I don’t know why, but cleanliness seems to help when things are uncertain. So I went with that. While my son was at his game, I cleaned the entire house.  I even cleaned my son’s room and his bathroom — jobs usually left for him.

I went to the school and picked him up. On the ride home, he told me about the game and about getting hit by a pitch. His face was covered in his usual game-day black eye paint. I tried so hard to ask the normal questions. Are you hungry? Then I asked, If you could have anything in the world for dinner tonight, what would it be? Because whatever you say, I think we should have that.

We walked through the door. He headed toward his room. His custom is to take a shower as soon as he gets home. Then I said it. “My man…before you get in the shower, can you come in here and sit down for a minute? There’s something you gotta know.”

That’s how the conversation started. 

At least the house was clean.