ordinary people

I got to school early today. I wanted some extra time to get my day prepared before I had to start supervision duty which begins at 8:30. I had dropped off my coat and boots and set the coffee to brewing and then left the staffroom to head towards my classroom. I waved at Donny as he was heading down another hallway. He had already been in the school for at least half an hour.

I started up the computer as I sat down and shuffled the previously shuffled papers. I had started humming a little tune when Donny walked in. He had a CD in hand and began to present his approval of the contents. "I really like song number 1. Number 2, 4 and 8 are also good...but number 1 is my favourite." He handed me the disc with a note attached outlining the very same words which he had just spoken. We talked briefly about music and the singer of the mentioned Christmas CD. Amy Grant has been around the music scene for quite some time..."It's too bad about the bad rap she received from the Christian world when she got divorced", I said.

Donny left and immediately I put the disc into the player. I let it run its full course, sporadically during the couse of the day. I loved it also. Number 2 was my favourite. I didn't feel bad that I didn't like number 1 as much as Donny did.

Much later, after the last of the students had cleared the hallways, I was in my classroom when Donny returned with his trusty mop in hand- doing his job of cleaning up after the students. He asked what I thought of the CD. I told him I loved it. With a smile on my face I said that number 2 was my favourite... "It's more funky." He didn't seem to mind. I thanked him for sharing.

This was Donny's first full week back to work as the caretaker of the school. He's been doing this job for a very long time. I asked him once but I forget how long it was. He was off for a week or so because his mom passed away. She had been sick for some time. Her funeral was last week. While he was gone, there were others who did his duties. His absence in the halls was very evident.

I wouldn't be surprised if Donny would be whistling all day if it weren't for the fact that he never stops smiling. It's hard to whistle while you're smiling. I've never heard a negative word come out of his mouth. He always has things to share, like Amy Grant's CD, Diana Krall live in Paris DVD, and books that I'm planning to read like Shake Hands With The Devil. "But have you considered Philip Gourevitch's We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families ? I've read both and the latter is written with a lot better detail." He likes to stand and chat about golf, anytime...anywhere. Where in the world are you going to find a caretaker, an ordinary janitor, who does...no...who IS all that?

When his mother died, he wanted to find a poem that would capture the spirit of what he was thinking about his mother. "It's surprising the amount of poetry one can go through when your looking for something specific." After looking long and sincerely, he came to Robert Frost and his Reluctance:

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended

He had just this first stanza printed in the program presented at the funeral. I didn't go, but there was a staff present who represented us all. "It was a very nice service", he said. I think there was a small lunch served afterwards. I imagine that's the way Donny's mom would have liked it. If she was anything like Donny, she would have wanted people to stay afterwards and share stuff...anything to keep life beautiful and ordinary, and yet extraordinary.

I think everyone should be able to hear their eulogy before they die.