A busy street is an exciting place to walk. Couples chat while many singles listen to music or podcasts on earbuds or headphones. Others talk to friends on portable devices, oblivious to the flesh and blood crowd.

I usually look at faces, perhaps because of my career as a clinical psychologist. When I go into grocery stores, I often say a few words to one or more employees. I also search for name tags to voice their names instead of shrouding them in namelessness.

My friend Keith and I went to lunch on Thursday. The front desk hostess seated us at the quiet table we requested. The miss recognized that the table needed to be moved to allow us more room.

The diligent employee was perhaps 25, slightly built, and pretty, but I mostly attended to her strength and thoughtfulness in gripping and pulling the table.

“My goodness, you are strong … and lovely, too.”

“Thank you.”

She was both, though I didn’t gaze closely at her since my buddy and I were in the middle of a conversation upon entry.

When we left 90 minutes later, we passed by the front desk again. I looked at her with purpose this time. The youthful woman possessed a pastel beauty, understated in her delicate appearance and unforced gift of enchantment. I could only say, “You are even more beautiful now.”

It was true. I viewed her in a way I hadn’t before—looking into her eyes as I do with many people, as if all others have vanished, and the world consists of only the two of us.

In a second, before I turned away to catch up to my friend, I saw the beginning of a tear in one of her eyes. She couldn’t speak, but her expression and the tear said everything.

Such moments come to me without effort. My friends know me as a serious man with an excellent sense of humor. When I look at them, they recognize they are being seen.

My life is complete, and I seek no lovers who are a third of my age, no matter their attractiveness—even assuming they are interested.

Between the seconds that opened and closed our lunch, Keith and I talked about the recent death of his oldest brother and other consequential matters. My conversations are spiced with more humor, as a rule. At the end of our meeting, I did something I now do with such friends.

I told him what he meant to me.

I do not say what others offer more casually. I am specific. My words tell these fellow travelers what I find interesting, important, or remarkable about them. If one observes the other in-depth, this is not difficult.

It is essential.

One might ask why I have begun doing these things—to compliment the young woman or to tell my friends what fine qualities I recognize in them and why I value them as I do. 

In the past two years, I have lost six friends, acquaintances, or relatives: Cliff Levy, Don Osborn III, Lincoln Ramirez, Neil Rosen, Cheryl Huston, and Don Byrd. Three suffered long illnesses before their passing. I had not been in recent touch with them all before they died. Only with my cousin Cheryl did I speak of her importance to me and the reasons why.

Life is sometimes rather like a 40-minute Zoom meeting. It is free, an invention some of us use to catch up with others. Toward the end of our time, we might hear someone in the middle of their sentence, and the next word is suddenly cut off. Such is life.

Yes, I can buy more time on Zoom, but with all the people I mentioned, no amount of money would have achieved that end—stretching their lives and their loves, the stuff that made them special.

So goes a lesson I’ve learned about conversation, love, and time.

I do not seek your condolences and am not looking for a date. Nor should you think I am signaling some future tragic end.

This is about something else entirely.

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The 1929 photo is of the 14-year-old Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman. It is sourced from Wikimedia Commons.