The story is that a guy who used to work for the NY Times had his wallet stolen from his jacket as it hung in the closet at work. Somebody found it stashed in a wall. Time between loss and find: forty years. It has been quite a while since I've misplaced a wallet. I have eventually found what I lost: in a pair of pants I uncharacteristically hung up or where it slid under the seat of a car. I can empathize with the dull panic and self-recrimination of having lost something so important. Watching the video of the man being reunited with his wallet after so many years took me far beyond what I could have imagined.
But there is much more to this than the return of a wallet. What I had not initially realized was the the office of the NY Times had moved. When the old guy gets out of the elevator, it isn't the same space in which he had once worked. It's all stripped bare, a staircase has been removed, and it's described as an Egyptian catacomb: dark, dusty and ancient. And when the hero finally holds the wallet out to its long-separated owner (at 1:22), the old man exclaims — and turns away. It is obviously his and he can barely believe he is looking at. He gently accepts it into his waiting hands.
Then the scene becomes holy. One reason this is such a fascinating moment is that it is pure, unrehearsed and profound. As he opens the wallet, the ensuing flood of memories and emotions makes him turn, as if to use his back to take the brunt of a wave. The camera maintains a respectful distance. We see him flipping through the images and papers. He talks to what is in his hand, softly like a child would to a small fluffy animal. He continues for a very, long minute. In excruciatingly clear words, he says exactly what we might expect: "I don't know what to say." He isn't tearful. But it hits him hard. It's difficult to know whether he is feeling the power of the reunion. It is not as simple as seeing pictures of people like his father who are long dead. There is something more taking place but we are left to wonder. He does snap out of his reverie but I suspect that's because of the camera's presence. I am fairly confident that when he went to bed that night, the wallet was on his chest and he lay awake for a long time.
But there is much more to this than the return of a wallet. What I had not initially realized was the the office of the NY Times had moved. When the old guy gets out of the elevator, it isn't the same space in which he had once worked. It's all stripped bare, a staircase has been removed, and it's described as an Egyptian catacomb: dark, dusty and ancient. And when the hero finally holds the wallet out to its long-separated owner (at 1:22), the old man exclaims — and turns away. It is obviously his and he can barely believe he is looking at. He gently accepts it into his waiting hands.
Then the scene becomes holy. One reason this is such a fascinating moment is that it is pure, unrehearsed and profound. As he opens the wallet, the ensuing flood of memories and emotions makes him turn, as if to use his back to take the brunt of a wave. The camera maintains a respectful distance. We see him flipping through the images and papers. He talks to what is in his hand, softly like a child would to a small fluffy animal. He continues for a very, long minute. In excruciatingly clear words, he says exactly what we might expect: "I don't know what to say." He isn't tearful. But it hits him hard. It's difficult to know whether he is feeling the power of the reunion. It is not as simple as seeing pictures of people like his father who are long dead. There is something more taking place but we are left to wonder. He does snap out of his reverie but I suspect that's because of the camera's presence. I am fairly confident that when he went to bed that night, the wallet was on his chest and he lay awake for a long time.
I shouldn't guess at what he was thinking. Instead, I can imagine what might go through my mind. At first, I'd be startled by the rush of memories: an old credit card, a newspaper clipping, and so on — the sorts of things I wouldn't have remembered missing. On seeing them, I would feel and hear a clap just above my head as the "gone" and the "here" slapped against one another. Most of all, I expect I would feel warm with recollections but also chilled by the reminder of finiteness. I would bask in the memory of where I was standing when I took the pictures but also staggered by the realization that those moments are gone — and have been for quite awhile. The consolation for me is a scrap of verse. Noticing the advance in years is a reminder of the life we made for ourselves. To not miss what I experienced would be an indication that I may not have lived as I should've or could've. The hurt would be preferred to having no feeling at all:
“The ways we miss our lives are life.”
A Girl in a Library
by Randall Jarrell
