Extraordinary People

I suppose, it being Father's Day, I should only be thinking about my fathers. But I'm thinking about someone else. He is an amazing person. I love him, I respect him, I have not yet found any real flaws to him (which bothers me, because, like all people, he has them. But they are not right at the surface, the way mine and seemingly everyone else's are). He is really something else.

Everytime I get worked up about something and hung up on an issue, I talk to him. And not just because I need to, as a requirement, but because I can't often see past the injust of the issue to see what... well, what ripples I'm going to create. Maybe that doesn't make much sense, but it does to me and this is one of those times I can explain it.

Next time you are by a lake or a pond, throw a rock into the water. When it hits the water, it creates ripples, and they go out in ever-widening concentric circles. Every time I undertake an action, it creates ripples that flood out and affect everyone else in its immediate vicinity. Just like throwing a rock into the water. I can't always see clearly the ripples I'll create by doing that. He can.

When I or Mitch get all worked up and ready to run out and start on an action, he is the calming voice that should be (but rarely is) in my head saying, "Stop. Think. What ripples, what reaction, will this course create?" When I really stop and think before I speak, then I can sometimes do that, but often things are knee-jerk reactions. But Kevin will always see things from all the angles - or most of them, or the major ones - and ask me what affect this or that rock will have. I can't seem to find that. The balance, I mean.

One time I was in his office and I mentioned that I am all passion and nuttiness and he is always so calm. I guess I didn't express that well, because I think he was not happy with that and said that he is passionate. Yes, he is right, it is not immediately visible, but he is passionate about his job, what he does, the person he is. That wasn't what I meant. I never did get to say what I really meant. It is not that he isn't passionate but that he isn't blinded by it, the way I am. That all that nuttiness and passion that makes me warm and caring also makes me wreckless and unthinking in my approach to things. That he keeps all of that reined in, not in a negative way, but in a way that allows him to look at things more objectively than I think I ever can. I admire that greatly.

My weirdness and passion does not do me a total disservice, and I like me a lot, so it won't go away. But to be able to stop myself, look at the situation without that weirdness getting in the way, Oh, how I'd like to have that kind of mastery! Over myself. I'm sure he has made bad decisions and agonised over things and have that reactionary issue, but where he has earned from it, lessons come slowly to me and I seem to be unable to get past that.

One time I did something really wrong - twice - and all he did was look at me and very calmly and quietly, with great gravity, say that he is very disappointed in me. I almost wanted him to yell, scream, curse, throw something at me because those quiet, steel-cold-angry-without-being-angry words were more crushing than anything else that anyone has every (or ever will) say or do. I was so upset. But it was what he was feeling and it would have been wrong to say anything else.

I'm being called to dinner, so I will continue this anon...