Originally published March 12, 2015
(Also in the spirit of #ThrowbackThursday) International Women’s Day had come and gone, and then we heralded Women’s Month as February slipped away as quickly as it had come. Through it all, I reflected on the women who had become important in shaping the man I am today. I thought of my mother and her strength, determination, and fortitude. I thought of bosses who believed in me enough to keep me around and even promote me. I remembered colleagues and clients whose abilities and talents exceeded anything they thought possible for themselves. I considered my former landlady, whose story will make a great book if she ever chooses to write it. I reflected upon former students who still remember me when they see me on the streets or at local events. And then it occurred to me that it had been a year since I waved goodbye to an unexpected friend who started as a coworker at a recent job I held.
I call her a friend because she acts like one. I also call her Oyama because it is her last name, and first names sicken me. She sometimes reciprocates by calling me Martin. Unless she’s mad at me, in which case she called me by my other name… or some other names I hope I never learn. When we worked together, she listened to me when I ranted about job frustrations, all the while masking her own stress and a deep secret about plans to leave her job. And when she left her job, I felt, for the first time in a long time, the pain of saying goodbye, a pain I had avoided most of my adult life by never getting close enough to anyone to make goodbyes painful. That’s what friends do, though: they get in where you don’t want people in. They figure you out in ways you thought you had cleverly hidden from everyone else. I call her a friend because she did all that.
There was one day in particular that convinced me I would have to buck up and work through a tough goodbye. On what was supposed to be her last day at the office, a group of our coworkers planned a farewell get-together for her in the conference room. While they secretly figured out how to get her out of the building and some tasty treats from South Philly into the building without her knowledge, Oyama scuffled back to my desk – known for a time as Mega Desk and later Death Star – and through tired lips uttered a single word.
“Lunch,” she said. I still laugh aloud when I remember that moment because on most occasions when we would try to have lunch together – or at least around the same time – she would ask me whether I had lunch or lunch plans. Other times I would ask her, or she’d just tell me before I had a chance to ask. And those interactions involved full sentences – declarative or interrogative – with real live subjects, predicates, and descriptive language to accompany them. Not that day. Just one single, solitary word, “Lunch.” That day, I told her I’d let her know what I wanted to do, though I knew time was short. When one of the party-organizers tried to get someone else to get her out of the building for lunch, I warned them that if I didn’t respond one way or another to her about lunch, she’d be suspicious and the surprise would be ruined.
It was true. Had Oyama asked me what I was doing for lunch or whether I was doing anything at all, I would have known she was ready to talk about lunch and not urgent about it. Had she told me that she was going to order lunch or wanted to order lunch, using most or all of those words, I would have guessed that she was serious about figuring something out and not determined to jump on anything quite yet. None of that happened, though. She walked toward my ever-growing empire at the back of the office, said, “lunch,” and skulked away when I tried to cover the party plans by saying I wanted to look at some menus, or whatever excuse I had given at the time. I knew that she was already hungry and would leave without me to get lunch if I didn’t answer her directly. That was as legitimate a reason as any not to send someone else to get her out of the office.
Here’s my far more selfish reason: Oyama was the gatekeeper, the cornerstone of productivity in our office. She was the bosses’ boss. She asked few questions and gave all the answers. And some honchos shoot first and ask questions later. Not her. She just shot… and then stared you down, almost daring you to try to shoot back. She was the planner, the scheduler, the organizer, the mastermind, the all-seeing and all-knowing office guru. And I was the office boy. Sure, I had taken over more space in the office than any other individual – and even than some teams – and all that meant is that I was a sucker for a special kind of workplace abuse. Why wouldn’t I want to be the one to hold the honor of getting Oyama out of the building and escorting her back in time for a surprise from a renowned South Philly pizzeria? I’m not sure I had earned the honor or deserved the privilege. I know only that I wanted it, and when the opportunity presented itself – “LUNCH.” – I took it.
This past Saturday marked a year since that day. It’s been a year, and in that time, I’ve kept up with her as best I could. I know that she stays busy with school and work, and at least both of those things are going in great directions for her. A lot has happened in a year, though. While I was still employed there, another coworker-turned-buddy left; a reserved and kindred spirit with an infectious laugh followed a month later; the office’s southern belle, an equally cordial and inviting soul, left a month after that; and a week later, my comrade in arms also moved onto better things. No reflection on the people left after that, I saw my opportunity to escape, and instead of weighing the financial woes that would beset me, I jumped ship shortly the start of autumn. Another big-hearted, level-headed voice of reason – one of the few senior managers who deeply felt the scar of losing Oyama – was let go without cause. Oyama’s year presented its own set of ups and downs, rocks and slides. Somehow, though, we all survived – some even thrived – in life after the time we spent working together only a year ago.
I miss Oyama. And I don’t miss people. At least, I work really hard not to miss people. If I know where someone is and that they’re well, I don’t miss them. Oyama is different, though. I hear from her, I know she’s doing well, and I miss her anyway. Here’s to Oyama, a truly international woman, in honor of International Women’s Day and Women’s Month. More important, in honor of who she is and the potential she has yet to unlock in what promises to be a trailblazing life, here’s to Elyse Oyama. Cat memes and all. Happy first anniversary back home.