The other day, Chip and I were running errands, laughing and talking really about nothing.  I can’t remember what sparked him to say it but he said, “we fill gaps” and quoted the conversation from Rocky when Paulie and Rocky were in the meat locker talking:

Paulie: [talking about Adrian] You like her?

Rocky: Sure, I like her.

Paulie: What’s the attraction?

Rocky: I dunno… she fills gaps.

Paulie: What’s ‘gaps’?

Rocky: I dunno, she’s got gaps, I got gaps, together we fill gaps.

It was an a-ha moment and rang so true.  Gaps. Gaps sounds so much better than hole or need or deficiency. It implies something that can be filled.  Something that we want to fill or be filled.  Lord knows I have gaps!

I started to think back about our relationship over these past 30 years.  Those gaps have been big and small; happy and sad; family and friends yet none so insurmountable. That makes me lucky.

Then I thought about gaps outside of me and Chip.  Do I fill gaps?  Do I have many gaps myself, and if so, who fills them? Once again, that makes me lucky on many counts.  I have ‘gap fillers’ at work, at the gym, in my neighborhood. I think of the people I interact with everyday and I bet they have no idea they are filling a gap for me.

When my neighbor Carrie comes to visit with the twins, Tommy and Sam, do those little boys know they are filling a gap?  The gap that makes me love that my son Jack is growing into a wonderful young man yet I miss those little boy years.  Those tiny hugs fill that gap.

Amelia is away and surely on the path to building her own life.  She must have a sixth sense because when I am missing her, she texts me some crazy thing that makes me laugh or smile.  She probably doesn’t know or think that there is a gap here without her, yet she fills it…remotely. I hope to always be able to fill hers.

Izzy has been the subject of so many of my posts, stories and Tweets.  Gaps?  To Izzy, a Pug, a gap is the time in between meals.  A gap is the space in between the blankets when its cold. A gap, is the silence between snores.  Izzy fills a gap for all of us.  If she herself has a gap, I hope she knows we will fill it.

So Chipper, your simply soliloquy sparked my thoughts yet again.  Thanks for filling my gaps and I hope to fill yours for many years to come. (Just don’t get too comfortable.)