An Extraordinary Ordinary Man

The house I grew up in

I was about 4 years old when Mr. Geary came to live in our upstairs apartment. 

Our little town was building a new power plant and he was one of the construction workers from Kentucky that had come in to town to work on it.  I'm not sure how old he was at that time but to me, he looked as old as anyone I had  ever seen. 

We quickly became unlikely best buddies.  Everyday my mother would tell me when it was about time for him to arrive home and I would run out, sit on the front porch and wait for his old red pickup to come down the lane.    At the first sight of it I would jump down off the porch and run to meet him. 

Every day he brought me a treat, usually a Hershey candy bar and some gum or other things he had picked up from the drug store in town.  We had a routine, he and I.  He would give me my candy and head up to his apartment. I would go in, get the newspaper and stand at the bottom of the stairs and ask, "Mr. Geary, do you want the paper"? 

Of course he would tell me to bring it on up. Sometimes I would pick a red rose off of my mother's rose bush to take to him as well, just to make it more special.   In his kitchen he would have two glasses of tomato juice poured and we would sit at his kitchen table and drink tomato juice while he looked over the paper.  I hated tomato juice but I drank it because he liked it. 

Then we would go outside and play with my dog or my dolls, or swing on the swingset.  Nothing special really, just an old man and a little girl spending time together much like a grandfather would do with his granddaughter.

I still remember the day Mr. Geary left our town.  My mother had told me that his job was finished and that he needed to go back to Kentucky to be with his family.  I was angry that he was leaving and ran out and sat on my swing, facing away from the house because I didn't want to see him leave. 

After a while he came out, put his bags in his truck and then stood off to the side of the swingset trying to tell me goodbye.  I would have none of it.  I would not look his way or give him the time of day.  He stood there for what seemed like a really long time.  After several minutes, he came over, bent down and kissed my cheek.  His face was wet with tears.  Then he turned, got into his truck and drove away. 

I never saw Mr. Geary again.  As a teenager we heard a rumor that he has passed away so I never bothered to look for him.  Much later in life I decided it would be nice to find his grave and say a proper goodbye.  After much research trying to sort out all of the Thomas Gearys in Kentucky, I got in contact with his son.  My heart sank as he told me that Mr. Geary had only passed away about 3 years earlier.  All of those years he was living just a few hours away.  He likey died not having any idea what he meant to me.  He probably imagined that a little girl would quickly forget. 

I did not forget.  Not even for a little bit.  So on a rainy summer day I drove to Bowling Green, Kentucky and put some red roses on the grave of a man who was much like a grandfather to me and finally, said goodbye. 

Mr. Geary never did anything that many people would call remarkable.  He never spent a lot of money on toys or gifts for me. He simply spent his time.  Looking back, I am sure that the last thing he felt like doing at the end of a hard day at work was to play with a little girl.  But he did.  And that little bit of time left such a mark on my life that at age 56 I am writing about him to let you know a bit about an extraordinary ordinary  man. 

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