We Need More "Tonys" in the World

In March 2003 I turned from a confident independent "thirty-something" married woman to someone who could no longer make eye contact with strangers who held the door open at the local Tualatin Oregon Fred Meyer store.  

I remember March 2003 like it was yesterday.   To make a "long story short" I had just discovered that my husband of 7 years who I adored and considered my lifelong best friend was having an affair with a married co-worker.    This news of my husband's infidelity came at a time when he & I were planning the family I had always dreamed of and after I had left a very secure & successful 8 year job at large Fortune 100 company.   I had given up my career and was now fully dependent on my husband (who I had the utmost respect for and trust in) and who had suddenly betrayed that trust.   My life was turned upside down to say the least.

During those dark days in March 2003, it was a chore to get up each day.    I wasn't eating.  I was losing my hair.   And i was understandably depressed and weak.    Step one was to get dressed and go to the grocery store as intuitively I knew I needed to try and eat something at some point as I was fading away quickly.    To this point after discovering my husband's infidelity I had stayed in my pajama's a week and locked myself in my home, not answering the phone, door or email.   Getting out of my pajamas to go to the grocery store was going to be tough. 

I came into Fred Meyer that day in a hollow daze.   I could no longer smile or make conversation.   I just wanted to get my food and get out so I could go back home and back to bed.   My favorite Fred Meyer grocery clerk (Tony) looked at me and said, “Is everything okay?”  I had not told anyone what was happening in my life……no one (not even my mother) knew yet that I had discovered that my husband, my best friend, the man I was planning to start a family with had left me for another woman.   When Tony looked into my eyes that day in 2003, I suspect he saw my raw pain and he “knew” that something was not right in my life.   Tony probed a bit further, “Did someone die?” he whispered very quietly?   I didn’t know what to say…..but it was at that moment in the line at Fred Meyer's that I told Tony what was happening in my life.    Tony was genuinely shocked - after all he was accustomed to seeing both my husband and I come through his line at Fred Meyer.    And in an odd way it was therapeutic for me to be able to "say it out loud" -  to tell someone, a “stranger” what was happening to me that during that time in 2003 when I felt like my whole world was ending, my whole world had turned upside down.

Eventually I healed and Tony was right there at checkstand #13 where he watched me return from the dead and begin to smile again.   I don’t know if he ever saw my ex-husband, but he told back in 2003 if he ever saw him come through, he would "slug" him which made me laugh which was not an easy thing to do back then during 2003 when my life had been so dramatically shaken.

Three year later in the Summer of 2006 when I was about to embark on another large life event - the adoption of baby girl all on my own as a single divorced woman., I went through Tony’s checkstand line as usual.    I was bursting to tell Tony my news……in a short time I would be a mom.      Once I arrived home with my baby girl, I proudly took her grocery shopping and once again made an effort to go through check stand #13 so Tony could meet my new bundle of joy.   Tony soon became to know my daughter too.    If she was visiting the Fred Meyer Playland and not with me, he always asked about her.   

That was Tony…..he was one of the "MIGHTY"….he knew his customers…he knew their lives…he spread cheer and healed the wounded with his presence and his words.    I thought of Tony back during 2003 as my angel.  The “one” who also had something cheerful to say, the “one” who was there to silently dry my silent tears when I experienced a loss, the one who was there to celebrate when something positive happened in my life.    

Who knew that on January 1, 2010, I would go through my normal grocery shopping routine to find that there were flowers at check stand #13, but no Tony.    I noticed the flowers there but still scanned the checkstands, as I often do, looking for Tony.   Very often I would make a point (as many of his customers did) to get into Tony's line even if it wasn’t the shortest line simply so that I could say “hello” and see his smiling face.    The flowers there  back on January 1, 2010 caught my eye again there in front of checkstand #13.   I walked over and read, then re-read the announcement.  No I thought…it can’t be possible.   It can’t be him….no, no, no.   I went to one of the  other checkers and asked, “Is this the Tony who lives up the street right on Martinazzi?”    Yes, it was Tony…yes it was my Fred Meyer angel.    I couldn’t hold back the tears.   I walked the aisles and all I could think about was Tony.   I wanted to call a friend, to tell them.  But no one I might call would understand…..how could the sudden death of a store clerk….a “stranger” could mean so much to me?  How could his death affect me in this way?     Well, those that wouldn't understand, never knew Tony.    

To this day EVERY time I enter the Tualatin Fred Meyer store, I think of Tony.     I went to his funeral back then in 2010 wishing I had just one more chance to go through Tony's check stand line and let him know how much he helped me through some really dark days back in 2003.  As you can imagine, Tony's funeral was attended by a large crowd, his customers who didn't know more than his first name, but felt the deep loss just as I did.

Here’s to you Tony and the huge heart print you left on so many people’s lives…..your memory lives on in my heart.  Now days I think of you and try to think of ways to "pass it on".   I can never fill your shoes, but I certainly try to walk through life now in your memory.