Keeping Those We Lost – and Ones We Still Have – in Our Hearts

这部电影

Jim Lott, left, and the blog post writer (who claims no responsibility for his outfit).

“澳门线上真人博彩官网失去了爸爸.”

My mom told me this, strong and direct, over my TECO desk phone. It was the morning of June 21, 2005. I was in my cubicle writing stories for a customer newsletter at the time. I’d known this 时刻 was coming for the seven or eight years my dad had battled heart disease. At 那 时刻, though – a bright and pleasant morning, strangely not too hot for summer – I didn’t know how to feel.

My boss wasn’t in her office, so I emailed her to say I had to leave for the day. I was glad she wasn’t there because how do you talk about this reality the instant it happens? I went to my apartment to get my bearings and paced. 哇，哇，哇，我想. 我一直在想.

This is what it’s like when a parent dies.

My dad and I had been seeing movies on weekends for a while at 那 point, 尤其是在他生病之后, and it’s fitting 那 the last movie we saw was 《澳门线上真人博彩官网》 自 第四集 (当它只是 星球大战) was the first movie we saw together. My awe at the blast of music and words scrolling away onscreen! 的 biggest spaceship I could imagine screaming overhead and then a bigger one chasing it down! My dad must’ve been extra-amazed because it was all new to him too – plus now he had a kid to see movies with.

Twenty-eight years later, we could agree the new episode was kind of a letdown. That wasn’t the point, of course – being together was the feature presentation. We’d done a good job getting closer as he underwent repeated surgeries. On my lunch break I’d go visit him at St. Joseph’s or Tampa General Hospital, wherever he was recovering from heart bypass procedure. We talked about family history; he alluded to a few cryptic things. 澳门线上真人博彩官网说过澳门线上真人博彩官网爱彼此.

的 biggest surprise at my dad’s funeral was seeing a bunch of my TECO team members show up when I hadn’t told anyone about it. “的 TECO Family” went from believable, oft-said phrase to heartfelt reality and a beautiful tribute to my dad, whose own father died in a plane crash when he was 12. Who had me when he worked as PR person for the city of Houston, hanging out with astronauts and aristocrats (it was the ’70s). Jim Lott was a poor kid who went on to have a child of relative privilege, me, able to go to FSU and find my way to TECO, 到这篇博文.

这首歌

15年后, 大流行期间, my friend and former desk-neighbor Sylvia Vega, 策略传播经理 & 与人民天然气的媒体关系, 给我发短信:肖恩·科普兰, 安全副总裁, 一夜之间死去.

Shawn’s death was the last thing in the world I expected – 那 someone so focused on safety could be gone with no warning. 他很有活力, 有趣的, 和他一起工作真是太棒了, 一个只是四处打探的高管, 停在, 漫步在. 想知道你的想法. Like no one I’ve worked with before or 自. Many afternoons you could find him in my office or Sylvia’s, brainstorming ideas for safety. As the pandemic started and I was in a new role, he called my cell when I was on a walk in my neighborhood, 看看我是否还好. 安全 advanced at TECO because of Shawn, who was always attuned to finding new and better ways to reach his team members to make sure they ended each day without injury. Like my dad, his loss was devastating, but in a different way.

听起来可能很奇怪, but just go with me when I say my car radio, when I got in it the day I learned of Shawn’s death, was playing “I Knew You Were Waiting” by Aretha Franklin and George Michael. A song I’d liked well enough as a kid now sounded almost religious, as if the universe was trying to reassure me it had plans for Shawn after snatching him away so suddenly. 我可以相信. 我想. I still feel sentimental when I hear it. It doesn’t have to mean anything else to anybody.

But Shawn, like my dad, meant so much to me – and so many others.

步行

的se days I walk a lot, typically wearing a Hawaiian shirt in Seminole Heights. I was thinking more about my health 自 my dad’s death, and this went into overdrive with Shawn’s passing. 的 11月. 4心散步 is another opportunity to walk for a cause 那 matters more than many can imagine.

Having gone through scenes of heartbreak, one looks for signs of hope. I walk because I have a daughter who never got to meet her grandfather; they would’ve made great friends. 我为肖恩走路. 我为我的妻子劳拉散步. I walk for the future, when Jacqueline Lott and I can go see the latest 星球大战 movie; even if it’s lousy, there’s bound to be some magic to behold. And we’ll listen to radio’s pop songs on the way, a melodic tapestry of human connection in a world we’re just passing through. Walking won’t make it go faster, but it might help keep us together a little longer.