What's in a name? Plenty it turns out
/The Boston Herald
BEVERLY BECKHAM
Everyone recognized him but no one knew who he was.
"Well-known Quincy man dies unknown," the headline said in Saturday's Patriot Ledger.
The story that followed told of a man who frequented Wollaston's businesses, who, every weekday bought the $1 breakfast special at Newcomb Farms; who, every weekend sat at O'Brien's bakery and drank coffee and ate pastry; who talked with clerks and nodded at passersby and bought scratch tickets at the Hancock Street Pharmacy and even shared, when he won, part of his $400 with the girl who'd sold him his lucky ticket.
Eleven days ago, this man whom everyone liked, ate breakfast as usual at Newcomb Farms, bought his scratch tickets at the pharmacy and was walking along the sidewalk when he collapsed and died. When police asked storekeepers who he was - he had no identification on him - almost everyone recognized his face, but no one knew his name.
Eventually his son identified him. His name was Robert Park, but for a while he was a John Doe.
"Everybody saw him, but nobody knew where he came from," an elderly gentlemen questioned by police said.
Everybody knew him, but nobody knew him. It's a common enough situation. You see people at the library, the post office, the grocery store, when you're waiting in line at the bank or the donut store, and you nod and say hello because you see them all the time.
But you don't know them. You don't know their name or where they live. You know nothing about them.
Then there are the people you do know or used to know or should know or think you know. But from when? And from where?
You talk. You say, "Hi, how're you doing." And the familiar stranger says, "Hi, how are you? How's your summer going?" And you answer something. But all the while you're thinking, who are you? I know your face. I know we've met. I know we've talked before. But I can't remember when.
You'd like to admit it. You'd like to say, "I'm sorry, I know I'm really thoughtless, but could you tell me how we know each other?"
But you don't say this. I know I don't. I just go on pretending.
"The summer is great. The kids are doing well. And how are your kids?" (Who are your kids? Do you even have kids?)
I do it all because I don't want this person to think I am so rude and thoughtless and self-centered that I don't remember who she is.
What do you mean, you don't remember me? Your daughter went to school with my daughter. Or we were on a committee together. Or I met you at a party. We had a long conversation. Don't you remember?
No.
And sometimes yes. Sometimes I remember the connection, but the name eludes me. And I go on pretending then, too, and have a 10-minute conversation with someone who tells me her daughter is a junior in college, and her son is working full time for some company, and her parents just moved to Florida, and she is in therapy, and her husband had a stomach operation, and it would be nice if we got together sometime, and I walk away thinking: Now it's even worse. Now I can never admit I don't know who she it.
Some of this who-is-she-and-how-does-she-know-me is, I think, unavoidable. You fall in with people. You see them week after week, in church or in a restaurant or on the street and you smile and say hi, and then it's "How's life treating you." Before you know it you're saying things like, "Hey, I haven't seen you around in a long time." By then it's past the point where you can politely ask, "By the way, what is your name?"
All the things we do so we don't embarrass ourselves. All the foolish little games we play.
What would people think if we asked their name?
What would they think of us if they knew we had forgotten who they are.
I used to work at a variety store a million years ago when I was 18. I met hundreds of people there. "Who's that?" I would ask the store's owner when the person walked out the door. I don't think I ever asked anyone over 12, "Who are you?"
Now I wonder why. Sometimes I see these people in my town, the people I never knew, and 27 years and dozens of encounters later, the sin of not knowing still haunts.
"Who is he?" my daughter will ask when someone stops and talks and I'll say, "Someone I used to know." Only that's not quite true. It's someone I should have known and would have known if in the beginning I had said those three little words that can simplify life: "What's your name?"
