Remembrance

A week ago I had dinner with a couple who knew my parents from back in the 70's. They'd lived in Dallas, had a daughter the same year I was born (whom I eventually went to college with), then a son a couple years later, then moved to Houston. Long history extended between us and them.

They'd come from Taiwan. The man had gone to the same college in Taiwan as my dad -- the same department even but a decade later -- and also worked for the same company in Dallas. So he knew my dad differently than I did. Well, that goes without saying. But I mean, the image that he had of my dad, the portrait associated with the name, was probably different than mine. A younger version of my dad. In the flush of youth. A family just seeded. A job at an oil company from the heady days of oil. The yard at our house with nothing but a couple saplings.

When I met them for dinner -- they were here on a stopover to catch a cruise on Monday -- we talked first about Vancouver, the weather, their kids. But then we spoke about my dad. About the funeral -- they'd been in China at the time -- and what I'd written, the commemoration my parents' friends had on Day 49 (a symbolic day), the one upcoming on Day 100 (another symbolic day).

Then we talked about their time in Dallas, when both he and my dad had worked for the same oil company. My dad was working in an off-campus extension, a little office by the airport. And he had a friend I'd never heard about, an Egyptian man working in the same office. They took midday walks, this man and my dad, around the cars in the parking lot. It was a jewel of a story.

When I thought about it afterward, I thought how funny it was that we may love a person but never know everything about that person, how we may, in the words of Norman Maclean, "love completely without complete understanding." I knew my dad only as my dad. But whatever he meant to other people remains just paper knowledge. As if I'd read a story in a book, and he appeared on every page.