Amidst the Lost and Found.

Funnily enough, though not of the humourous bwahahaha variety, contexts of a Missed Connection and Reconnection came my way this given week.

Invariably, as I read the scrawls on Reconnection, I thought of You and how apt it was -- the polaroids, the female's retort and about not sharing her youth but wanting to grow old with him -- The script was the same, a scrivenery of sorts if you will, but veered off in different directions. Hers tapered off in a beautiful manuscript while mine was/is the Unknown griffonage.

They're rather lengthy, so I'll show you my fave bits and affix a link to each article if you'd like to partake in their full glory. =)

(1) Reconnection (A Love Embraced, Some 35 Years Later)

Every so often Mr. Obenhaus would stumble upon his stash of Polaroids of Ms. Cioffi. “I would just think of her just very, very warmly, and kind of wonder, ‘What happened to her?’ ”

...When he returned home, he called her for their first telephone conversation. “I say to her, ‘I’m falling in love with you,’ ” he said. “And I say, ‘Well, I’ve loved you my whole life,’ ” she said.

...So, the vows began, “I offer you not the summer of my life but the autumn, brisk and vibrant.”

(2) Missed Connection

'I'll talk to her before daybreak; I'll talk to her before Tuesday.' The longer I waited, the harder it got. What could I possibly say to you now, now that we've passed this same station for the hundredth time? Maybe if I could go back to the first time the Q switched over to the local R line for the weekend, I could have said, "Well, this is inconvenient," but I couldn't very well say it now, could I? I would kick myself for days after every time you sneezed -- why hadn't I said "Bless You"? That tiny gesture could have been enough to pivot us into a conversation, but here in stupid silence still we sat.

...For sixty years, we sat in that car, just barely pretending not to notice each other. I got to know you so well, if only peripherally. I saw you cry once after you'd glanced at a neighbor's newspaper. I wondered if you were crying about something specific, or just the general passage of time, so unnoticeable until suddenly noticeable. I wanted to comfort you, wrap my arms around you, assure you I knew everything would be fine, but it felt too familiar; I stayed glued to my seat.

One day, in the middle of the afternoon, you stood up as the train pulled into Queensboro Plaza. It was difficult for you, this simple task of standing up, you hadn't done it in sixty years. Holding onto the rails, you managed to get yourself to the door. You hesitated briefly there, perhaps waiting for me to say something, giving me one last chance to stop you, but rather than spit out a lifetime of suppressed almost-conversations I said nothing, and I watched you slip out between the closing sliding doors.

It took me a few more stops before I realized you were really gone. I kept waiting for you to reenter the subway car, sit down next to me, rest your head on my shoulder. Nothing would be said. Nothing would need to be said.

When the train returned to Queensboro Plaza, I craned my neck as we entered the station. Perhaps you were there, on the platform, still waiting. Perhaps I would see you, smiling and bright, your long gray hair waving in the wind from the oncoming train.

But no, you were gone. And I realized most likely I would never see you again. And I thought about how amazing it is that you can know somebody for sixty years and yet still not really know that person at all.