Saying Goodbye
About a year after I moved into my current apartment - the first building I’d ever lived in with 24-hour support staff - one of my favorite front desk guys left for a better paying job. I was crushed. I found myself flailing around wildly after he told me, convinced I could be the one to solve the labor problems and budget constraints that lead him to finding work elsewhere. But a neighbor who had been here for a long time calmed me down, wisely letting me know - this will happen a lot. You will get incredibly attached to the people who make your home a home, and then they’ll move on to another job or another life responsibility. Figure out your coping mechanisms now, because you’re in for the ride.
There is so much privilege built in to where and how I live. I have an elevator. I have a dishwasher. I have guys I trust who I call when things break. I have space. I have light. I have heat. The sheer possession of shelter at all is a privilege. These are all things that - I would hope - even the least aware and conscientious person who lives here and places like here could acknowledge.
The cumulative privilege that I think is often missed, however, or at least not talked about enough, are the tiny, incremental privileges of having a friendly face that welcomes you home every day and every night. There is incalculable value to the regularity of presence of someone who cares, someone who knows your name, your packages, your laundry regularity. Even if these relationships don’t involve emotional intimacy, they foster an intimacy of proximity, of regularity.
David started working here at the very beginning of the pandemic. In some of those darkest days, he was a beacon of light that beamed through our lobby. With treats in his hand for all the dogs and high fives for all the kids, David has been an absolute gift to our building, to my home. Whether it’s putting me on the walkie-talkie to announce the weekly cookie delivery to the staff, showing me pictures of his granddaughter, or letting me practice my meager Spanish with him, David’s presence in my life has held me through the last 5 years.
But duty calls - he is returning to Puerto Rico to take care of his brother who has Dementia… an act of service that is also utterly David. Today we’ll celebrate his time here with a little party, and next week we will send him on his way. To mark the occasion, I did this illustration of our building’s courtyard (another privilege). I thought about doing the exterior of the building, but capturing the colors of the internal garden felt much more appropriate to him. He will always be part of the interiority of this space.
