The thousand'th meeting

There he sits. The same as every day. Every single day, I get up, go to work, passing the bench on my way, and he is always there.
And today it's the same.

The air is crisp and cold. The leaves are orange and falling quietly to the ground as they usually do in the middle of October.
I pull my jacket closer around my body and try not to think about my icy nose and hands. It's especially windy today, so I've put my hair up in a braid instead of the loose strands I'm usually seen with.
The early morning is black, so he's easier to ignore than in the summer. It's not that he looks like a bad person or homeless. It's just the fact that he is always there. Sitting with, not just one, but two cups of coffee. The first one in his hands, and the second on the bench next to him. Like he is inviting anyone to sit down next to him for a cozy talk about everyday life. And I go past him everyday. No matter how early I get up or how late I get home. He sits there looking like a friendly old man with his gray hair, in his tweed clothes and with crooked glasses.
I sometimes catch myself thinking about why he sits there all the time, but always have to shake myself out of it.
Cause I don't have time for those kind of speculations. I don't have enough hours in my day as it is, so I shouldn't stop for some old man. I need all the time I have. So I never stop to think about him.
And I don't stop this morning either.
Because that would mean throwing all that I have worked for straight out of the window. I won't let myself have any distractions. For then I would not achieve anything in this life.
So this morning I stay on track. Like all mornings.
I pull my jacket tighter around me and instead of looking at him I take my phone out. Even though I promise myself not to look at it when I am out of my door. No distractions.
But when it comes to walking past this man, everything in me tells me to stop. But I don't. Because that's not what I do.

It got a little late today, but I'm satisfied with the work that I got done. It has been a pretty perfect day and my spirits are high as I walk home in the early night.
Now I just need to get home, take a bath and make a good homecooked dinner for myself.
The cold is seeping in through my jacket, but I just try to remember the bath that's awaiting me.
My favorite pair of boots float silently above the hard ground.
Until they don't.
Panic catches in my throat as I stumble over a twig. I try to pull my hands from my pockets to steady myself, but they're stuck. Everything in me is panicking until I finally fall face first to the ground.
My first thought: Please let there not be anyone around!
I scramble around on the ground trying to get up awkwardly, hating myself for this.
"Are you okay? Ma'am? Do you need help?" a deep voice says. Friendly hands start to help me up, taking my arms and lifting me.
"Yeah, I-I'm okay," I say, a little shaken and my whole body hurting. Not at all okay.
"Are you sure? Come, sit down for a minute."
I was so confused that I didn't notice who it was. The old man, with the two coffees.
A warm, happy feeling spreads in my whole body. It feels right. I sit down on the bench, a little unsurely still. I can feel the bench shift a little as the old man sits down next to me. He picks up his coffee cup and takes a sip. His glasses slide down his nose.
"I see you passing here everyday. Always in such a hurry to get to wherever you're going," the man says, not like he's trying to pry, but in a way where I just... relax. Because he already knows me.
"Yeah, I'm a bit busy a lot of the time." I don't want to tell the old man that it is his fault that I always hurry past him. I ransack my brain for something I can say. To get away from this subject. "I see you sitting here all the time? Every day when I pass this bench you're here? Don't you have somewhere else to be? Some work?"
The man sighs, looking first into his black coffee and then meets my eyes.
"You probably wondered about the two cups of coffee too." Not a question.
"Well... yeah. But—"
"Let me tell you a story." He doesn't let me protest or say anything. He just starts telling his story.
"I had a wife once. She was the love of my life. She had the prettiest red curls when we were younger, and her smile," he looks into his coffee again. "Her smile was like the sun. It was like a warm hug from across the room. I never thought she would notice me, cause I was a nobody, but she did. And we got married. Had two happy children. But then, she got sick."
Dread fills me. The stars are shining above us, telling us that maybe there is still some kind of hope.
"I'm so sorry," I say.
"Thank you." He smiles, his eyes crinkle. "So she got cancer and... I was left alone. I stayed with her to the end and she stays with me now. In my heart. I can never truly let her go and I will never find anyone else. Because it wouldn't be the same." Another deep sigh. "My children visit me. And I visit them. They have the sweetest kids in the world. But I always return here. Because there's nothing I'd rather do than sit here thinking about the past. Thinking about her. Because she is the best thing in my entire life. So I sit here with two coffees. One that always goes cold. But it's worth it."
The story ends. I would normally think this so sad, that all this man lives for is his dead wife. But instead it fills me up with warmth. Warmth towards this man, but also to life.
Maybe it is so simple. This man is happy, in his own way. Because he was happy once.
Maybe I can become happy like him too.
"I bet you have a lot to think about right now," says the man and sends a warm smile under his glasses.
I snap out of my thoughts. "Yeah, but thank you though. Both for helping me when I fell, but also for the story."
"Goodbye," he says.
"Goodbye." And I have a weird feeling that this is the last time I'm going to see him. So I smile extra warmly before I turn around and leave him on the bench, with his two coffees.