Gentle Man

A gentle man makes me cry. He's reserved, unassuming. He's soulful, creative. I think some people mistake his quietness for passivity. But I know the passion. The wells of empathy that ache. We all come with a backstory.

I came downstairs, ready for work, and he pulled out French toast kept warming in the oven. Vanilla caramel tea with the right amounts of sugar and milk were already in my to-go cup. These small things. They're scribbled messages like the ones I used to leave him propped up on the computer when he taught a class in the same room right after me. I am grateful. I appreciate you. I do not take you for granted. I want to take care of you.

The crib that my father-in-law told us he'd buy arrived. It's only a big box in our living room now, but what it's for is what made me cry. It's for our baby. We put a crib on our registry because we need it for our baby. Because he will need a place to sleep. Those are things I know, logically. But the big box in our living room is tangible. Physical. Bodily. Like the little boy inside me. My gentle man, comforting. Smiling his shy, knowing smile.

A couple invited us over for dinner last night. A kind professor on my hall whose gray hair belies her girlish face, married to a gentle man, also a professor, who has the same name and is the same kind as my husband. Their brown, curly haired, dimpled daughter. It was an open adoption, she tells me. The one thought that moved me to tears: How does a mother say goodbye?

I learned about the former wife at a previously attended dinner party. An off-handed comment. I learned that the former wife died when the kind professor took a short walk down the hall and chatted with me for a while. Her husband, the gentle man like mine, is also a poet, like her. An accomplished one. The book he published was a part of processing his grief, she said.

The former wife was mentioned again last night after dinner. No details, but a sad story, I surmised. When my body got up this morning at 6, unable to sleep any longer, I looked up the gentle man's work. After reading just one poem, I knew. Even though he didn't give explicit details, I didn't need them. I knew. I knew what happened to the former wife and at least a piece of why. And, once again, I cried.

Now I understand a part of his quiet passion, of his wells of empathy. When he smiles the same shy, knowing smile my husband does, I understand a part of the ache. We all come with a backstory.