my Krouse Rosenthal died yesterday.
I don’t know her, but I cried when I read the dating profile she wrote for her soon to be widowed husband.
Like, big ugly cried.
I can count the number of times I’ve cried as an adult on one hand. Well maybe I’d need to borrow a few fingers, but the point is I rarely ever cry.
Maybe its because my wife is out of town and I miss the mornings with her after the kids have gone to school and the nights where we don’t even have to be talking but just being near each other is enough to put us both at ease.
Maybe it was because my son had posted a picture with his arm around his little girlfriend wishing her a happy birthday. And he still looked like a little boy. Like my little boy. And I know that won’t last much longer because within months his voice will start to change. And he will change. And he won’t be that sweet little boy with his arm awkwardly draped around an awkwardly adorable little girl with braces. He will still be my son, but that little boy will be a memory as I welcome the man he’ll be.
I don’t know if any of those reasons are the reasons I was ugly crying reading news that a woman I’d never met have died.
Women I’ve never met die everyday and I don’t cry.
Let alone ugly cry.
But something about this woman, and this woman’s words as she met her end stirred something in me. They say that hearts are the ears of the soul. And mine needed to hear what Ms. Rosenthal had to say.
“I want more time with Jason. I want more time with my children. I want more time sipping martinis at the Green Mill Jazz Club on Thursday nights. “More” was my first spoken word (true). And now it may very well be my last”
Notably she wasn’t asking for more time with her phone. Or with the brands that she’d built a relationship with.
They say that there is a war being waged for our time and attention. That companies of all kinds are competing for little spaces in our days and in our brains and in our shopping baskets. As with every war, there are winners and there are losers. If the brands, and social networks and media outlets win, who loses?
Maybe the reason for my ugly cry was that I know who loses.
And who is losing.
Last night, I found my two older kids on the couch watching the Bachelor. I mean, ugh! But, instead of retreating to my office for more working, or surfing or scrolling I sat. Instantly I was flanked on each side with two cuddly kiddos. A moment of more.
In a war that feels like a constantly losing battle, this felt like a small win.
Thank you, Ms. Rosenthal. I hope you were able to savor what little more you were able to while you could.
I didn’t know about her. And I do now.
And this makes me want to cry, too. And to close the laptop, bring L home from the day care, snow and freezing rain be damned, and spend the rest of the day with him in this tiny apartment, learning the new words and sounds together, finding this world endlessly fascinating, only in the way an 18 months-and-x-days old person can. Because tomorrow he will be 18 months-and-x+1 days old, and it will again be different.
tinfoilparachute 