Today I want to share with you a story that happened with a friend of mine over 20 years ago. Back then I used to live in NY, my friend just immigrated recently from Syria and taken residence in City Island, Bronx.
At the time compared to the area in general, city island was and probably still is an oasis. I enjoyed visiting this friend in particular and having some nice Turkish coffee with him often, he was a conversationalist, a story teller of some sorts. All his stories were real, but extremely funny. They were mostly about his experience moving to a new country and blending in.
Blending in, something not easy to do, but good or bad my friend always found the brighter side of things even in the worst of situations. He once told me about these "nice thieves", a group of teenagers who surrounded him on the subway as he was headed home one night and robbed him of everything he had, money, watch, ring etc... My friend smiled at them before they left and told them he needed at least one dollar back so he can pay the bus ride from his last stop on the subway to his home on city island. And they did give him a dollar back, thus him calling them nice thieves .
But that's not the story that popped to my mind today, it's another one I call "Death Sentence".
Ever since he moved to his home in city Island my friend had a roommate, his roommate would get all the mail everyday. My friend checked the mail daily, nobody wrote anything to him, no junk mail even. Since he was new in the country his name was not on mailing lists, and nobody mailed him anything, so everyday he would check the mail hoping that someone or some company paid attention that he is in America. He wanted recognition.
One day he brought the subject up while we were having coffee. He asked me how to get junk mail? he wanted to get it so bad, he wanted to feel like everyone else in America. He would wait for the mailman to see if someone finally recognized him as worthy of junk mail. I laughed at this, as we all are usually sick of getting junk mail. Yet, here is my friend who wants it so bad, some sort recognition that he blended in.
Finally the day came and my friend received his first junk mail, some company offering to sell him a piece of land. He called me right away, he said he will not open it until we meet in the evening over coffee, he wanted me to read it to him, and explain what this company was offering him. I told him most likely they wanted to sell him a piece of swamp land in Florida, but I will visit him in the evening to read it.
That night was a little different, my friend has prepared the best dinner, and made the "best" Turkish coffee. It was the same coffee he always made, but I guess his feelings were different that night, it was a celebratory coffee, so to him it was special.
After dinner and while we started to sip the coffee, my friend brought his first junk mail on a tray, this felt like his graduation day. He is now part or this big American melting bot. He wanted me to read to him loud and explain it.
The letter was more like a greeting card inside and envelope, the envelop had this nice looking piece of land on it...
As I opened the card, and started reading my friends face started to turn red, he did not need me to explain anything the words were so clear, my friends first junk mail was an offer to buy his eternal resting place at discount, the sender was a local funeral home.
I could not hold myself from laughing, my friend who finds good in every situation could not find a way to make sense of how his hopes of blending in were shattered like that. He actually would have been happier getting an offer to buy swamp land in Florida than to buy his own grave.
Ever since every time me an my friend talk, I still bring up the story of his death sentence, "Have you made good on buying that eternal resting place?" that would set him off.
Hope is a great thing to have, but associating our success with one event is a dangerous thing. Life will deal us a blow after another, and we need to come out strong. Twenty years later, my friend is a very successful businessman in NY, and he yet has no plans to buy his eternal resting place, but he sure as heck blended in and is a proud American.
