When I was a child and my grandfather was still alive, our family, aunts, uncles, and cousins, would venture to the next town periodically for Chinese Food. I remember two things about those meals; the soup with the noodles that had a piece of meat in the middle, which I now know is wonton soup, and the dragon on the street outside.
Perhaps it was a courtyard; I was very young after all. The dragon was colorful and bright! It was made of colored stone, a mosaic on the ground, that had a life of its own. I’d spent countless childhood visits running over that dragon as if it were its own version of the yellow brick road.
When I was seven my grandfather died. He’d been sick for a long time. He had leukemia. I remember sitting on his lap while he read to me from the National Geographic, his hands would shake so bad, I’d wondered how he could see the words.
I don’t think we went back to that restaurant after I was five. Leukemia had taken its toll long before he died. But I always remembered it. A happy memory stored in my heart. I’d never shared it with anyone, no one had ever cared to get to know me that deeply. Until that summer.
We’d meet online. He was going through a rough separation and made some comments that compelled me to reach out to him. We vaguely knew each other; our brothers were friends. But we’d never meet, at least not that we were aware of. He friended me because he liked the things I said on my brother’s page, I accepted because he seemed of like mind. But that day I reached out to him was the beginning of our relationship.
We spend hours talking to each other, both on the phone and online. Sometimes, we’d talk on the phone multiple times a day. We were the same age, we grew up in the same town, we had similar social circles, and yet, we’d never meet. But with each conversation, he felt more and more like home.
One day, I’d shared the story of those long-ago family dinners at a restaurant in the town he worked. I told him about the dragon mosaic on the ground and how we’d stopped going when my grandfather got sick. He listened to me talk, unlike anyone I’d ever communicated with before. It felt like he absorbed my words.
A short time later, after his lunch hour, he sent me a picture. It was the dragon. The dragon was no longer vibrant. The years of neglect had taken their toll. The mosaic was in a courtyard, behind what I pictured as a wrought iron gate. He told me transients we’re staying there. They eyed him suspiciously as he took his pictures and quickly left. He didn’t feel safe either.
That day, he’d done something for me that no one had ever done before. He’d gone out of his way, out of his comfort zone, to find that old, shuddered restaurant with the brick dragon mosaic in the courtyard, behind a wrought-iron gate. He’d done it for the sole purpose of making me smile; of making me happy. And I’d fallen in love with him just a little bit more that day.
Since that moment, our relationship has had many ups and downs. We seem to be doing okay right now. And yet, I have no idea what the future holds. I live with both hope and trepidation. But no matter where we go from here, he will always have my heart for finding my childhood dragon, for no other reason than to make me happy.
