This story begins when I started working at the Safeway grocery store in Richmond, British Columbia. I worked in the deli for many years. Over those years I became friends with a sandy-haired, fast-moving customer.
He always arrived on Saturday morning with a list an arm long. He moved quickly, and was in and out of the store before you knew it, whistling classical music and going his merry way.
Over the years, we started chatting. He would stop at my deli counter and stay just a bit longer each week.
I learned that he worked for CP Air. That he had a family of five. And that he lived just around the corner. Our over-the-counter chit-chat became a ritual, and we had some good laughs. He called me his “baloney-salami Saturday psychiatrist.”
I can’t remember how the idea of a picnic came about, but somehow it did. Every week we would make plans—pretend dates—to meet at places like Garry Point Park. The deal was I would bring the baloney and he would bring the homemade wine. It was all in jest, but it was fun. And each Saturday morning we’d talk about why we had each “forgotten” to show up.
Sometimes his wife would come with him to the store, and she and I would have a laugh about her husband and me never making our picnic “date.”
Years went by. And every week we played this game. Once I told him that I couldn’t sell him a barbecue chicken. I said I felt he wasn’t responsible enough to look after a dead bird. He agreed.
We must have been about the same age—around fifty-five— so I noticed, with concern, when his step became slow and he lost so much weight. I also noticed that he rarely whistled anymore.
I wanted to ask him, but I knew that wouldn’t be right; he was a customer. His wife started to shop more often. I felt a cloud hanging over both of them. One day when she came in I could see that she was crying. After serving her at the deli I asked my manager if I could take my break. I walked with the man’s wife out to the parking lot. She told me that my “never-to-have-a-picnic friend” was dying of cancer in Richmond Hospital. We hugged and cried.
Then she looked up at me and said, “You guys never made it to the picnic.”
I asked her if I could make up a picnic basket for the three of us and bring it to the hospital that night. She agreed. I packed soda crackers, yogurt, and bananas. She’d told me those were the only things he could swallow.
From her husband’s chit-chat, I knew that her favourite sandwich was Italian salami with Swiss cheese on a kaiser bun. We had wine for the ladies, candles, and a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth.
The nurse was kind enough to close the room-divider curtains. We had a window looking out on the park. We laughed and cried together as they told me about their children, and the struggles of their life.
After twenty-five years we were finally getting to know each other. We finally got our long-overdue picnic.
Our time together was short, as my customer grew tired quickly. His sandy hair was gone and the fast-moving body was now almost lifeless. We said our goodbyes. I knew I would never see him again.
He fought hard, but a few weeks later he could fight no longer.
I made the sandwich trays for his funeral with fond memories of the times we spent over the counter. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know his name; we knew each other as people. That’s what was important.
Richmond, British Columbia