A friend of mine recently asked an interesting question. If I could go back and change one thing, what would that be?
Of course, a million and one things blew through my brain all at once.
I would have worn white every fall after Labor Day, eaten dessert for breakfast, and never turned on the blessed TV.
I would have thought twice before leaving the house, even if it was only to the grocery, wearing my hot pink scrunchie, no make-up, and my pajama top charading as an extra-large Tee.
I would never have let my mom talk me into picking out Periwinkle (is it blue, is it purple? Who care?)for my bridesmaids dresses because I wanted black instead.
I would have laughed harder, even if I accidently snorted or spewed liquid from the side of my mouth and nose.
And I wouldn’t have felt silly for crying, even though my heart felt slightly closed up, just a little, every time I was done.
I would have liked myself more.
“You’re not dying, for Christ’s sake,” Alicia reminds me. “It’s a hypothetical question. And no, it’s not like Back to the Future where you can wipe out your children’s existence because you wish you and Doogie Howser had met on a blind date.”
“Are you sure,” I ask back. “I mean, I don’t like to tempt fate.”
“For the love of God, just pick one thing you regret from the past and tell me why you wish you could change it.”
One thing. Just one, small thing in a span of forty freaking years. Easy for her to say….she not even 35 (not to mention, she has no idea who Doogie Howser is. As if….)
Then it came to me. Only it wasn’t for a few more days.
“Where’s the older, bald guy with the cool mustache? I’ve missed him for awhile,” I ask someone from the drive thru window of the 19th Hole after ordering a bottle of Simi chard.
“You mean Super Dave?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, rummaging, as always, through my wallet. “He’s tall, sweet in a gruff way, always laughs at my jokes.”
“Yeah, you’re talking about Dave,” he tells me. His voice is kind. “I’m sorry. He died of a heart attack a week ago Tuesday.”
Finally. Me, a loss for words.
Stay sweet, Super Dave would always tell me. Year after year after year….he’d say, stay sweet. How could I have never, ever, even asked him his name?
He’d pick out the perfect Pinot to have with beef, the crispest white for fried catfish, and best bloody mix for Sunday brunch. Tell me how you like it, he’d always ask me on my out the door.
We talked about other things too, in all the years I knew him. We talked about golf, college football, our lousy island internet connection, seasonal traffic, and all kinds of weather. I saw him at least once a week for as long as I can remember. I knew him, or at least, I thought I did. But I never asked him his name.
I found out even more about “Super Dave” Person, in the days that followed. Things I should have known awhile ago. He was born in Savannah, went to high school at Glynn Academy… the class of’67 to be exact… and served in the Army during the Vietnam conflict. He has two sons and five grandchildren.
Dave Person had been a part of the island, the community, a part of us, for over forty years. And I never thought to ask his name.
Dave. David. Super Dave. David Person.
Stay sweet.
I guess I just thought he’d always be there. Part of a spoke that turned the day to day wheel of my small world I’d like to think of as well greased. Ready to go. Contained. Business as usual.
Y’all have no idea how much I would love to pull up to the 19th Hole and ask him right now if he could recommend a great Cabernet that’s got the right hint of tobacco, deep red currant, but not too sweet. I’d ask him about the weather, too.
I’d hear a baseball game in the background, smell the faint hint of cigarette smoke, and listen to Dave shooting the bull with his customers as he would ring me up. Then he’d give me the VIP service, as he liked to call it, by scrawling my own crazy signature across the credit card receipt, close the window, and get on with his business….as usual.
Tell me how you liked it.
How I wish I could.
Since Dave died, that Tuesday, May 8th, I’ve thought a lot about where we live, our small town.
It’s not like I originally thought, each one of us living as separate wheels, moving in all sorts of crazy directions, casually crossing paths now and then, yielding, catching up, or running smack right in to one another, if we’re lucky, to visit and then go off again.
No, I think those of us who dwell here are more like thousands of pieces of a moving ladder, a giant strand of DNA. A living helix that is bound together at the stripped down essence of it all. We may spin and rotate in different directions, separately, molecule by molecule, person by person, all the time, but we still move with the same underlying purpose. Connected. The same strain.
My regret? Easy. It’s not asking for a name.
Stay sweet, y’all.
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