This past weekend I traveled to a small village outside of Montreal for my high school roommate’s wedding. Mike and I were roommates our senior year of high school, together with another friend, Amos. Amos and I started as freshmen (first year) together and Mike started attending the high school as a sophomore (second year). The ceremony was gorgeous, bride and groom happy as can be and teary at the altar, and overall, just a magical event. Surrounded by family and friends, Mike and Spenser (his wife) could not have been more smiley and happy. Max, Mike’s brother, gave an amazing best man speech. It was out of a picture-book, with orangey yellow leaves fluttering in the wind. I hadn’t seen Steve and Anna (Mike’s parents) in seven or eight years. Steve is kind of a legend around Montreal, as he runs a famous Jewish bagel shop. Anna, his wife, is Italian as can be and one of the biggest sweethearts you’ll ever come across. Together, they could not be more friendly and happy people and parents of the groom. I was greeted with a ‘Haugeeeeee!’ followed by the shuffling of Anna’s stiletto heels across the floor as she came to give me a hug that nearly suffocated me with love. When re-connecting with Mike’s parents after the better part of a decade, we recounted numerous stories of both our (the kids’) times during high school as well as the years following. Driving up to Montreal to visit Mike, watching him play semi-pro hockey, and spending time with the family, was always so much fun. (Including a rather humorous story of me hiring a limo to bring a bunch of us guys to a posh nightclub in Montreal - only to be rejected at the front door in front of a long line of people way more attractive and hip than us! Steve liked that one in particular - multiple guffaws and back slaps ensued.) Later into the evening, Steve shared another story: Mike’s first day at high school. This one I had never heard in such detail before. The Dizgun family drove the car up to our dormitory and parked outside. Knowing Mike was living on the second floor, the family carried bags or boxes up the one flight of stairs and entered the second floor landing. And who should be there? Yep - you guessed it. Hauge! As I was living on the same hall as Mike, I happened to be in the dorm at the time. Over the course of the next thirty minutes or so, I helped Mike move into his room a bit and got to meet his parents. This apparently left somewhat of an impression on Steve. “You know, Hauge, all it took was a smile, a handshake, and a hello. We knew immediately that Mike (Dizgun) was in the right place. We knew he had found his new home.” Driving two hours back to the airport on a crisp Sunday October morning to catch my flight back to Shanghai, I kept repeating those words to myself and couldn’t help but smile. Thirteen years later, this gentleman, Steve, remembered a smile, a handshake, and a hello. He felt his son was in the right place. He felt his son had found a new home. How easy is it for us to do the same to all of our clientele when they are in the building? It costs us so little and a smile, a handshake, and a hello can mean so much. Half a lifetime later, what do you want people to remember about you?
