Daniel

DANIEL

From my notebook...

There are a few sentiments, feelings that we simply prefer not to discuss. Loneliness is one.

First, I happen to love babies. New ones. Only a few weeks old. No one especially me can ignore a half battalion of babies at the fancy coffee shop where I sip and where all new mothers meet to babble and jive. I'm especially attracted to a baby's eyes. They mesmerize me.

I find it absolutely amazing how a new baby will follow motion so soon after they are born. After all these years, I guess I've become a trusting soul because mothers will share their bundle holding duty with me if I happen nearby. A new baby will hook on to my eyes like a tow truck attached to a Audi and they will follow the slightest movement of its mother. For a new baby, not a single thing moves, not even a mouse, without instant eye pick-up and surveillance. I propose that recruits could learn from babies.

It makes no difference when, but once I met a man sitting alone outside the coffee shop. For some reason, I sat down beside him. His eyes were the reason for my attraction - they were a deep blue colour which I had never seen -- the blueist beyond any colour description which I could imagine.

His eyes were more blue than anything Sinatra ever sang about, more blue than the sky's over New Brunswick and more blue than a deep lake. I couldn't help but buy this guy a cuppa Joe. His name was Daniel.

I saw Daniel often over time, did I mention his unusual beautiful, blue eyes? I asked him nothing and he offered little. Coffee was as far as he would go and I had no need to press. Questions are no cure for loneliness.

For any man, especially a police officer, much is told by a person's eyes. When I retured home to my wife, we tried to imagine where Daniel had spent his life and with whom?  Had he ever been in  love, was there once a woman, where are his children? None of these qustions were ever asked. Or answered.

Yesterday, I had a call that Daniel had died. I'm sure he was not more than 65 years. I quickly did a recall autopsy of his eyes -- his deep blue eyes which gave warmess but for which there are no descriptors. 

One day, he had been a baby. Today was his funeral. In the Chapel, there were only three. The Padre and Daniel made two.

'Maintain Eye Memory'

J. J. Healy,
Reg.#23685