2:05 (An essay)

2:05 PM is the time that my alarm goes off every day.  For anyone who worked around me during my time with Jacobs at the AOC, this is no surprise.  It became a source of silliness and whimsy that interjected itself...like it or not...into a sometimes tense and serious, but always exciting environment.

I am immeasurably lucky.  I  got to share an office with Michelle Chuisano for over three wonderful years for eight or nine hours a day, five days a week.  I would spend more waking time with her than anyone else in my life.  We shared our work, our families and our friends.  We shared our victories, our failures, our joys and our sorrows.

To Michelle, there was nothing more important than family and friends.  As we shared that messy office, like the good mother hen that she was to so many of us, she would watch over me and remind me what was important.  Family.  As I would get caught up in work, time and time again, she would remind me as she left for home with her carpool buddy, Eric, that I needed to finish what I was doing and go home to real life...to my wife and my children.  I would often tell her that the day just got away from me, but, yes, of course, she was right.

So, eventually, I set a daily alarm for 2:05.  It was a signal to myself that no matter what was happening at work, as hectic as things could get, that it was, once again, time to start preparing to leave.  Time to start preparing to shift to the things that are most timeless, most fulfilling, most important...my home and my family.

The fact that this daily reminder could be done with playfulness, frivolity and causing just a touch of annoyance made it all the more fun.  And that was one thing that was special about Michelle.  In the midst of the chaos of our lives, she had a joyful sparkle and a passion that enriched her world.

The hardest thing about leaving Jacobs and the AOC to start a new chapter in my life was that I would miss out on seeing my friend everyday.  As time and life moved on, we saw each other and talked together less and less.  But her friendship always remained dear to my heart.  Eventually, I even turned off my daily alarm.  Time moves forward.  Although I am truly enjoying this next chapter in my life, I think hearing that alarm every day just became a melancholy reminder of something that was behind me.

A few days after I got the word that we had lost our dear friend, I happened to notice that the alarm was still there on my phone.  The alarm was still in the memory of my phone.  I had not deleted it.  I had just switched it off.

It is far too easy to become complacent and let ourselves get mired in daily minutia and lose sight of the bigger picture.  It is as if we forget that while this moment is the chapter we find ourselves in, there is a true arc that will someday be the complete story of our life.  And because of this, I think that we all need something external to remind us, from time to time, the difference between what is fleeting and what is lasting.   These cliches sound trite and worn...but there is a reason for that.  They are true and they are important and they have worth repeating and repeating and repeating.  Because we are human and we forget.

Now, knowing that Michelle is gone and that a chapter in my life has truly closed, it does not seem real.  It does not even seem possible.  But it is the truth.  She is gone.  But the time we shared can never be taken away.  Just as for anyone who's life she touched, she will always be a part of who I am and how I see the world.  We are all different people, better people for having known her.  As for myself...for that, I will be forever grateful.

When, I saw that alarm in my phone, that reminder of so many wonderful memories in the past and the foundation of the real priorities in my life moving forward, I turned my daily alarm back on.  So now, I get to think fondly of my friend, Michelle Chuisano, every day...at 2:05.

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"Sometimes it makes me sad, though... Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend."
- Shawshank Redemption (1994)