Lost Opportunity

So I found out yesterday that an old co-worker of mine died recently. I wasn't particularly close to this person, nor did I really like him a lot, but I feel a great sense of sadness that he died.

We argued a lot at work, over politics and history, but we both had a similar view that things could change. In his life he didn't have a lot of luck, as he put it. He grew up in a poor inner city, and learned from the words of wisdom of his grandfather, an old black man from the deep south. A lot of the sayings that he would make would be those old southern sayings.

When we first met he aspired to work in the job he had. His goal was to work in the printing industry, because that was all he had ever known. He was suspicious of education and educated people, because all the educated people he had ever known tried to screw him out of money, freedom or both. The educated were the government people who created the ghettos in which he lived. It was the educated who had initially allowed slavery in the Constitution, and that caused his people to be in the situation they find themselves today.

Throughout the year or so that we worked together we discussed many things, but the topic that most often sticks out in my head is Education. I made it my goal to convince him that education was the key, the silver bullet that can cure all worlds ills and destroy poverty. He had never seen it this way.

By the time I stopped working there, he was convinced that he was going to go back to school and get a degree in sociology or political science. Whether or not he said this for my benefit or not, I am not sure. He went from seeing his community as a bucket of crabs, where when one tries to get out, the rest pull em back in, to seeing opportunity for the future, and hope for a better tomorrow. He had hope that he could do better for himself. And for his son.

He had a 6 year old that was his life. As anyone that knows me, I don't like kids. However he stayed with his girlfriend of 15 years for his son. He understood what it was like growing up without a father, and knew that his son wouldn't have the same opportunities and learning experiences without a father, than with. He tried real hard to do good for his son.

Anyway, long story short, i find it sad that he is now gone and won't have the opportunity to go back to school, see his son graduate from high school, go to college or start his first day of work. It is sad that he will never know whether his son had done better than he had for himself. And while I will never be a parent, I would imagine that every mom and dads goal is for their child to do better than they had.

Happy Fathers day Al.