James

His name was James, and I liked him immediately. 

He was the line cook at a facility that I spent some time in as a kid, a good-natured man with maybe the most genuine smile and easy-goingness I had ever met in my whole life. And he took a liking to me, too. 

Every day, I would go through the line with my tray, and we'd spend the whole time talking and chatting about the most random things. Mostly sports. We were both really into basketball. It wasn't long before he invited me to come down to the gym after lunch and shoot some baskets with him. 

I wasn't sure how the rules of the facility worked. I was new there when I first met James. It was a locked joint - it wasn't exactly the kind of place where one could freely move about. But I asked the staff if I could go down to the gym, that James had invited me, and they smiled and buzzed me out the door. 

I walked down the hall, this great big ramp, by myself and turned into the gym, where James had ditched his hair net and was dribbling a ball around and taking a few warm-up shots. He immediately passed it to me. 

And this became our routine. 

Every day, after lunch, the staff would buzz me out the door and I would walk down the hall to the gym, where James would be warming up. He'd greet me with that authentic smile, pass me the ball, and we'd start shooting around and talking about life. Unlike so many other persons in my life, there was no teasing. Not even sportsman-ish teasing. There was no trash talk. Just solid, pure, 100% encouragement and relationship.  

I treasured those hours with James. 

It didn't occur to me until much, much later in life - actually, until I started working a job with kids myself - the sacrifices James must have made for those hours. There were things to do in the kitchen - leftovers to clean up, dishes to wash, steamers to drain, stock to rotate, stuff to pull for the next meal. He had plenty to keep him busy. 

But he always made time for me anyway. 

I think about those afternoons quite a bit when I have to choose between a task and a person in front of me. Tasks...can wait. And I'm willing to work a little bit harder at my job, at the things that I do, if it means that I don't miss this moment for authentic connection and real relationship with an actual human being right in front of me. You never really know how much those little things mean to the persons on the receiving end of them. 

And if that means that I go back and spend a little more time on the tasks later, then so be it. There will always be dishes to wash. 

You'll never get that basketball court back.