I think I’m redefining my outlook on true love. I thought I knew what it was. I thought I had experienced it. But there is no way to express the indescribable love I feel for my little girl. It’s really overwhelming, sometimes. I was working a festival today, and I was watching all these fathers with their little girls dancing around to the music that I was making louder, and all I wanted was to be dancing around with my own little girl. The worst was when this adorable little blue-eyed red-head who was about the same size as Cindi came up and starting dancing exactly the way Cindi dances. I felt overwhelming joy and misery at the same time because I thought it was so adorable, but all I wanted was to be watching my own child dancing at that moment.

You see parents with their children and you assume that you know something about how they feel. You don’t. Not unless you have children of your own. There’s just no way to understand that feeling. I thought I was ready for it. I thought I knew what it would be like, and I really didn’t. It’s far better than anything I could have imagined. Even with any and all aggravation that having her here might cause, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. She’s the center of my world now. I understand all of those silly songs and quotes and all that other nonsense that you hear when fathers talk about their daughters. They’re trying hard to express this feeling, and now it doesn’t seem so silly to me. I get it when Stevie Wonder sings “Isn’t she lovely?” or when Paul Simon sings, “There will never be a father who loves his daughter more than I love you.” It sounded trite before, but it’s not. It’s real.

I thought I would share with you all an example of lousy customer service. It’s really unfortunate, too, because they were given every opportunity. I won’t explain too much of what happened, because it’s spelled out below in a copy of the e-mail I sent to them this morning:

Hi, Dave. My name is Darren Sussman, and I am soon going to be building a dedicated home theater in my basement. I wanted to write to you, as the owner of a business that does corporate and theatrical A/V installations as well as a potential customer, and give you the courtesy of explaining to you why I will not be doing business with your company.

I am telling you all of this because, as a business owner, I know that it helps to know when we are doing bad as well as when we are doing good. In this instance, your poor customer service has lost you a potential client. I do not know if this was an isolated incident and I don’t know if your customer service is usually better than this, but I thought that you should know about my own experience with your company. Thank you for your time, and best of luck.

Here was Dave’s response to me:

Dear Mr. Sussman,

David L******

Unfortunately, Dave’s response was an even further example of bad customer service. I gave him every opportunity to make the situation right. First, I wrote to him to explain the situation, when I could have just as easily chalked it up to bad customer service and not used his store. By writing him the letter, I gave him the chance to say what he should have said which was, “We’re sorry you had such a bad experience, but we would still like the opportunity to help you. Please tell us if there is anything we can do to make the situation right with you.” If he could take the time to write his one line response, he could take the time to write the few extra lines and conceivably gain a customer. It’s unfortunate that he would allow a customer to slip away like that, but I suppose that’s becomming more and more common in the consumer world.

I went to a viewing tonight for my former choir teacher, Mrs. Tina Petri. When I knew her she was Tina Baldwin. In high school, we called her Tina, although usually not to her face. Sometimes we called her Big Red. Not because she was big, but because she had red hair. She was great. She was probably the first teacher I ever had who I felt like she was a friend, or at least who I talked to as though she were a friend and not just an authority figure. That’s probably part of how I’ve developed my attitude towards dealing with authority figures (i.e. I’m not really all that intimidated by them). She used to do this thing where she’d wear a different gown to every choir concert, and they were usually quite…eccentric. Sometimes she’d have more than one for a concert. We gave her a hard time about it, but we loved her for it. We had a thing called Men’s Homeroom Chorus which was basically just the all-male choir, except that we would meet for the five minutes before first period instead of having an actual class. We were, in a way, her “guys”. There was one concert where we were singing “Pretty Woman” and we had decided that at one point when we were supposed to say something, we would all say in low, deep voices, “Tina”. She turned to the audience and bowed, and then turned back to us and gave us a “shame on you” look, but she was smiling, too. That’s probably the way I’ll always remember her.

It’s sort of weird, because I haven’t actually seen her since I graduated high school, but I would say that her passing is probably the closest person I’ve ever lost. I mean, I’ve only (fortunately) ever been to two funerals before this. One was for the brother of a friend of mine, and the other was for Ali’s cousin’s wife, and while I knew her, and while my daughter is named in her memory, I never really spent all that much time with her or got to know her all that well. But I spent four very important years of my life with Tina, and I’d be lying if I said she didn’t have an impact on me. I think viewings are an odd thing. I mean, to go and see her body lying there…I had a very hard time with that. I got into the room where she was, and I saw her, and I just…I couldn’t really get any closer. It seemed odd to me and I wasn’t at all comfortable with it. I mentioned that to a few friends who were also there, and they said that of course that was okay, and that really whatever I needed to do to say goodbye to her was the right thing to do. I never actually went up to the coffin, but I did feel it necessary to go and give my condolences to her husband. I didn’t really know him, but if he made Tina happy, he must be a pretty good guy.

Anyway, I don’t suppose there’s much else to say on the matter. I’m certain that she will be missed by many people, and I count myself among them. Even though I haven’t seen her in 10 years, I guess it was always comforting to know that she was there. She will most certainly not be forgotten.

A big “shout out” to my “homey” on the first day of his third decade of existance. Rock on, sir. Rock on.