What do you want?

An ever-evolving "beautiful question"....

Tom loved me.

But his first love was his 1974 MG.

He bought it after grad school, and he kept it. He’d laugh, saying that it was never his intention to keep it forever – but he just did. So it went with him from Baltimore to Dallas, and then it came with us to SC.

Who knows how many lucky friends he took for a spin? And then his first wife, and his kids. Even his golden retriever, Ben. 

And, eventually, me.

My first ride in the MG

A few weeks after we met in the spring of 2009, Tom invited me to join him for lunch on Memorial Day. 

Lunch is easy and low risk, emotionally. (I remember thinking this, at the time, and then wondering why I always second guess or question my reactions or overthink everything. It’s what I do.) Lunch is simple enough, nice and casual.

He picked me up in the MG, top down. It was a hot day in Dallas and I remember the little ripple of excitement that we’d be out in a convertible. His fun and playful side intrigued me. 

He opened the car door for me, and handed me a UNC ball cap. "In case you don’t want too much wind in your hair," he smiled. 

Oh my God, that smile.

We went to a fun little neighborhood bistro and ate frites on the patio. We talked about my work; he wanted to know where the missional experiences had taken me. Nigeria? Costa Rica? Mexico of course. Russia? He’d worked in so many places - but not Russia, not Nigeria, and he was curious. 

He told me about how his "first real job" –  for a Saudi prince! – had taken him not only to Saudi Arabia but London and Paris and the Republic of the Congo and Egypt and Morocco. Who gets to do that in their 20’s?

The next job, after he finished his MBA at Chapel Hill –  which explained the cap he’d provided – took him to South America and back to Europe and later to Australia and then Europe again. He had a long list of other places he wanted to see, people he wanted to meet, cultures he wanted to understand. He asked me, Have you ever been to southern Africa? New Zealand? Where do you want to go?  It was a long lunch.

Then he told me he’d just accepted a job that would send him to Dubai; he wasn’t sure how long but maybe a couple of years. I was surprised by the little stab of disappointment I felt, that he’d be a long way away for a long time. I made a mental note to find Dubai on a map and learn something, anything about this city that excited him so much.

When we finished lunch, he smiled the smile. Let’s go get ice cream!

So, a really smart man who’d seen half the world and wanted to see more? A curious man full of questions? A thoughtful man? And enthusiastic about ice cream?

I could like a man like this.

When we got back in the MG in pursuit of ice cream, he looked at me – that deep looking – with those intense blue eyes, and asked So, what do you want?

What do I want? 

Was he asking what kind of ice cream I wanted? Or was he asking what I wanted from life?

Mint chocolate chip, I told him. And Marrakech. I want to see Marrakech.

He rewarded me with The Smile.

And a few minutes later with mint chocolate chip. 

Marrakech came much later.

Now that question, again: What do you want?

Several years after we moved to South Carolina, the MG got a little facelift - new paint, shined up chrome, new leather seats. The restoration was slow and by the time the car was back home and running, Tom was too ill to drive it. But he’d go out to the garage and sit in it, touch it.

He’d smile with the memories. 

And then it sat in the garage alone. For a year.

For a year, I’d see it every day, and I would remember Tom sitting in it, caressing it, that smile wistful. Sometimes I would sit in it and cry.

His kids and I talked about what should happen to the MG. I told them that I wasn’t attached to it emotionally. I told them that we could sell it and they could split the purchase price. I told them we could move it to Dallas, and I could sign the title to them. 

They wanted to keep it in the family of course, and I knew they would, but I wanted them to make the decision. 

So I contacted a car transport company that could take it back to Dallas, safe and sound in a covered truck. 

A few days later, the MG was on it’s way to Dallas.

I thought I had no emotional attachment. Turns out I did.

Tom had that little car before most of us knew him. His brother and his old high school friends, of course, knew him before the car.  But mostly, the car preceded all of us. That didn’t explain my tears, though.

So what was it? 

I thought about that a lot in the days and weeks that followed, and here’s what I think: I think his attachment to that little car was a glimpse of the way he attached to his people; his affection was a glimpse of the way he cared about his people; his wistful last weeks with it exposed his awareness of his limited time with his people. That’s what I saw when I saw the MG; I saw his smiling open-hearted way of connecting; I saw his affection; I saw his energy. And I saw his absence.

I saw the car and remembered his stories about driving it with friends from Maryland to Florida and that still makes me smile, imagining that little car with a couple of big college guys (and a cooler of beer, I’m sure).

I saw the car and remembered that first lunch date just weeks after we met.

I saw the car and I felt the breeze as he drove us to the tennis court, or to get ice cream. 

I saw the car, and I saw his smile.

And I never want to lose that image, that awareness, that part of this man who loved me and loved us so. 

And I remind myself today, a year after waving goodbye to the car, that it belongs in Texas, where Tom’s beautiful kids will treasure it and care for it, and go for ice cream and feel the breeze, where they’ll someday take their kids or their dog for a ride. And I know they’ll smile too.

It’s "only" a car. But it’s not only a car.

Now, a year after the car’s return to Texas, almost two years since saying goodbye to Tom, I return to the question he asked me 15 years ago: What do you want?

Exactly. What do I want? What do I want, now?

What do I want, now, 15 years later, 15 years older, 180 months since that lunch and ice cream date, countless questions pondered – what do I want?

A beautiful question…

It’s one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves, and maybe we should sit with it more often than we do.

Poet David Whyte might call this a “beautiful question.” He says that “...a beautiful question starts to shape your identity as much by asking it, as it does by having it answered.”  

When we ask ourselves what we want, we might be asking, Where do I find joy? but maybe that also invites us to ask How can I make life more joyful for someone else?

When we ask ourselves what we want, perhaps we’re also asking What kind of person do I want to be? What kind of energy do I want to give to the world? What sort of contribution might I make?

As for me, now? Here’s my short starter-list:

• I want to remember the laughter and adventures and love we shared

• I want gratitude and generosity to guide my heart

• I want to honor the gift of life by living whole-heartedly

• I want to wander the world: to explore new places and cultures and people, and I want to cultivate relationships that build bridges and erode walls

• I want to listen to more music and write more words and feed my heart with goodness, and I hope to encourage and inspire others along the way

• I want to offer what I can to make the world a more whole place, and I want to honor and appreciate the gifts that others offer

• I want my little moment on this planet to leave a dent of kindness in the universe

• I want to keep asking this beautiful questions….

What about you?

What do you want?

What beautiful question can you ask yourself today?