Neighbors: Remembering Mario

I dropped by Best Buns this morning. There's nothing unusual about that. It's pretty much my neighborhood coffee shop. I have spent more money on their muffins and mochas than I care to ponder. I've also spent a lot of time there that is worth pondering.

As Mr. Rogers said, "imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person."

For several months now I've walked into Best Buns once or twice a week hoping to see Mario, my favorite barista. He became my favorite barista because he paid attention to small details -- lining up the logo on the insulating cardboard ring with the logo on the cup with the sippy hole on the lid, for example -- and because he always, as a matter of course, offered a kind word.

I got to know him a little over the past few years after thanking him once for the care he took with his customers' drinks. I would hang out at the counter while he worked on the drinks of others, and we'd chat about the things that neighbors chat about -- the weather, our kids, work, soccer games. He was an immigrant, working two jobs, and raising his kids.

Early this summer he was absent from work for a while, and when he came back I asked what was up. He'd had some sinus infection problems. He was back for a few weeks, and then gone again long enough that I asked after him and learned he'd been hospitalized. He never returned to work.

This morning I stopped in with my daughter and ordered a couple of muffins and a couple of mochas. I noticed when the barista finished crafting our drinks and expected her to call my name and hand them across the counter. Instead, she walked around behind all of the baked goods cases and brought the drinks over to me. She handed them to me and then leaned in close and shared the news that Mario had died over the weekend. She gave me a hug and said, "I gave him the card you dropped by."

It was a sad, kind word. Of such are neighborhoods built and communities created.

The neighborhood feels diminished today, and no words will restore what has been lost. That is true with every death of a kind and generous soul. But with the small kindnesses of words each of us can build resilient communities that nurture kindness and generosity, such that though our absence diminishes what we leave behind the neighborhoods we leave are strong enough to continue nurturing new neighbors far beyond our own times.

Thank you, Mario, for countless delicious cups of coffee. The neighborhood you helped to build misses you.