11 Cheeseburgers

It’s Memorial day as I write this, and I’m in a pensive mood…

I was at Chris’s memorial service yesterday, and I’ve been to a few of these lately – and among the food on a table was what appeared to be a rather out-of-place crumpled up McDonald’s bag.

I didn’t think much of it until I heard the story behind it. See Pat, the fellow who brought it, had been best friends with Chris, and they’d spend hours driving around, sometimes in Chris’s tow truck, sometimes not, and as often as not, they would end up stopping at a very particular McDonalds, where the two of them would order 11 cheeseburgers.

The question was asked, “Why 11? And who got to eat six of them?” and Pat said he wasn’t sure exactly where it came from, likely Chris going through the drive through with his truck to get some dinner, a hankering for cheeseburgers, and the clerk asking the simple question of “How many?”

Chris and Pat shared the unspoken question with a look, shrugged their shoulders, and next thing they knew, they had 11 cheeseburgers to share and accompany the conversations ranging from the nature of gravity to the physics of electricity and radio waves as they waited on the next call.

And over time, it became a tradition.

Every time they went to McDonald’s, they ordered 11 cheeseburgers.

In a bag.

Every.

Single.

Time.

It became almost sacred, the way Pat told it.

And it got me thinking…

I’m in that stage of life when it’s becoming obvious that there’s a changing of the guard going on, where you realize, sometimes slowly, sometimes with a stunning realization, that you’re now the very close to being the oldest generation living in your family, where you used to be able to have conversations with grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, who simply aren’t there anymore for you to have conversations with.

And with Chris, I realized that it’s not limited to people older than you.

It made me wonder, what kinds of little things will be precious to you when someone close to you leaves this life to live on in your memories?

I really started wondering…

There are friends who know, for example, that I will only call them a butthead if they’ve earned that privilege. (Of course, I have to explain to them that it is a privilege, a badge of honor, to be called that, only then do they get it)

I think of my dad, who I used to simultaneously love and get frustrated with, who loved me as best as he knew how, and I realize I miss hearing his greeting, “Hello sonshine.” Or yelling at us to shut the living room door as we ran out it.

I think of Glenda’s peaceful presence, and her laugh, as she took life, and death, in stride and made it work.

Betty – how we were able to take off the day to day masks we wear to protect ourselves, and just talk about the stuff that really mattered.

I think of people who are still part of my life, and realize there are things that are inexplicably special, things that have become the “11 cheeseburgers” of our lives…

The Grand Coulee Dam.

“How are things in Gloccamurra?”

“Delays, Delays…”

“Butthead…”

Yasuko’s…

A shoe shine kit.

A jar of homemade Quince jelly.

An Egg carton.

A yellow superball.

A root beer can.

Sitting quietly with a friend at an airfield, then seeing it from above.

A phone call from a long-lost friend.

A tennis ball cannon made of a bunch of pop cans and masking tape..

An old Saab.

Two rocks, now shiny, that I’ve carried around in my pocket – one since 1997 (my son’s first day of kindergarten) one since 2010 (his first day of college)

“Hey Du…”

A pair of red Converse High Tops.

And so many others.

It’s not what they are, it’s what they symbolize.

Things that in and of themselves, mean nothing to someone who doesn’t share a history with you, I mean, it’s a bag of cheeseburgers… it’s a greeting… it’s an old car.

But for Chris and Pat, it was more than a bag of cheeseburgers – it was friendship, (and it was theoretical physics) and it signified that all was right with the world.