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And no, I didn’t shake her hand afterwards

And no, I didn’t shake her hand afterwards

May 1, 2002 (Wed)

It kills me whenever I say goodbye to somebody, and that person ends up walking in the same direction that I’m headed. There’s that awkward silence when we both realize that the distance between us isn’t increasing, and we’re left to decide whether to ignore each other and keep on walking, or to fill the moment with empty words.

Something similar to that happened to me Monday night. It was 8:45 PM, right after my religion class was dismissed. As I was leaving the building, I sneezed, and a classmate that was walking behind me paid me the courtesy of saying “bless you.” I thanked her and walked on. About a minute later, I realized she was still behind me. At this point, it probably would have been perfectly acceptable to keep my mouth shut until she and I finally parted ways. But it seemed rude to ignore her. “Thank you” hardly seems like an appropriate way to say goodnight. And besides that, I was suddenly struck with a thought that I had to talk over with somebody.

I won’t bore you with a word-by-word account of our conversation (although, I’m tempted to do so out of some self-indulgent impulse). But I will tell you that it began with the origins of the phrase, “God bless you” and it ended with a discussion of what the people of today have to contribute to the course of human history. By the end, I remember her saying something to the effect of, “If we all knew what our contribution to history would be, then we’d drop everything we were doing and try to cut directly to that contribution; and then we’d miss out on everything that was good along the way.” You know, she might be right. Maybe it’s a good thing that the future is unknown.

I love it whenever I throw out a random question and I’m met with an insightful answer. Just think…all that from a sneeze.