Endings are some of the hardest things to experience in life…the ending of a relationship, the end of a story be it in your life or in a fictional setting, or the conclusion of a marker or milestone in our lifetimes can make us feel a multitude of emotions.
The passing of someone close to you is surely one of the most emotionally charged of those kinds of life experiences, and one that surely changes many aspects of our daily lives.
It is with that in mind that this column is dedicated to John Niazi, a man who’s passing definitely invoked emotion in me because of who he was in life.
People and places that affect us greatly often come into our lives from simple actions and mundane days.
In the case of John, it was because his convenience store was one of the last ones to sell buy one get one free cigarettes.
From there that usual friendly banter between ‘customer and shopkeeper’ ensued, small talk mostly, but as I was also at that time getting off a bus to go work the graveyard shift at a similar type of store, a bond was developed over that as well.
That level of relationship existed for quite awhile, a lot of joking over people’s weird behavior in retail, the usual quick and jovial banter about sports or the weather, but already by that time I could see John was a man with a good heart who actually cared, a rare thing lately in the world and a person who also had the sort of ethics I believed in myself.
A couple years later I was freshly returned to the state of Illinois myself and looking for a job that would make accommodations for my physical health.
I had also been drinking pretty heavily since late May after losing a six and a half year relationship that involved my ex’s two children that I cared dearly for…I had not recovered from all that loss but I walked up to the store John owned with his wife and children to see if he’d hire me despite my physical problems.
To his credit he never batted an eye as he liked me from our previous ‘banter’ and hired me on the spot, a little bit of hope in a gray world.
Working with John I found he was pushing himself as much as I was to get it all done and continue to work, and I cannot express properly how nice it was for both parties to be able to express themselves to someone else who is in pain everyday but doing it anyway, something I feel John felt as well.
John would continue to be a good friend, one who always had my back and along with his entire family would be people who I really appreciate and respect, even when we were not always seeing eye to eye.
John passed this week and even when the sickness was on him like wildfire he still maintained who he was, still tried to give out those little bits of kindness, still was the same man I had known and respected for years, a man who I will continue to see as a friend and a guide for the rest of my life.
God bless you John and your family, I am glad I could be a part of your life and that you were a part of mine.
