Tom’s Clippings
He loves me through the act of scissors slicing through newsprint and cartoons. He also knows me well enough to know I’ll never read them.
He says, “I have something for you when I see you tomorrow.” I know better than to think it will be a gift or flowers. Tom is the brother I wish I’d had. He is the first person I came out to and the one that helped me look after my mother in her last few months of life. Through illness, car crashes, careers, girlfriends, grief and endless conversations and snarky jokes over coffee, he has always been my best pal. We are lifelong friends, platonic soulmates and you will never meet a kinder, true gentle man.
What I am about to receive will immediately join the temporary collection behind my driver’s seat. Resting on the floor are choice magazine and newspaper clippings, neatly trimmed and cut to size. That stack rises with articles about the weather where he used to live, entertainment articles about Joni Mitchell, Dionne Warwick, or the obituary of an author or playwright, and perfect squares of naked Love Is… cartoons.
When he hands them to me and says, “I think you’ll find this interesting.” He describes the article enough so I don’t really need to read it. Frankly, most articles he cuts out for me don’t interest me, but he’s so kind in the offering and imagining that I would want to see what he sees. I graciously thank him as my arm and papers go behind the seat.
After 40 years of friendship, he thinks he knows what interests me. Not often true, mostly I have learned what interests him. On more than a few occasions I’ve asked him to stop the clippings and bits of paper. He took no offense, and he also continues the practice. To stop would go against his nature like a cat I once had that proudly delivered lizards and birds and other objects of prey on my doorstep. Like Tom’s clippings, these are gifts captured— not to consume, but only to be shared as a prize, perhaps as a showing of affection or utility or purpose or true love. I do know, with appreciation, it is all these things.
The pile behind my driver seat grows until the day I wash the car or need the space for extra passengers. He doesn’t mind that I don’t read what he gives me. His act of giving is what he desires most and what he looks forward to in his 80-year-old life. It means something to him to offer. On days he has nothing for me I know something is up and I always ask what it is and I listen.