The Left Hand to My Right

I took one of those online quizzes on Facebook about which part of the brain I use the most. According to the test I use both halves equally. I posted the results and one of your former bosses and friends, J.S., responded with the comment about being left-handed and being his right mind. This made me laugh because you being left-handed used to make the same joke.

The conversation continued and led to JS sharing an article about engineering and art:

Popular belief is that the left hemisphere of the brain is for rational, analytical and logical thinking and the right hemisphere of the brain processes visual and audio logical stimuli, spatial manipulation, facial perception and artistic ability.

Oddly enough, you were the logical, rational one, but you could put things together like nobody's business. You never considered yourself artistic until I shared with you the art of Zentangle. You thought I was the creative, artistic one.

This started me thinking about how you and I complemented each other:

• When we walked together, I would stand to your right leaving our dominant hands free to write, use the phone, whatever.
• We were both musical. After all, that's how we met in high school. But you admitted that you were jealous of musicians who learned to feel music rather than just play notes on the page. I on the other hand, from a young age, was deeply moved by music. I was even found crying at age three in Macy's department store. My mother asked me why, and I said the music was so sad.
• You loved Classic Rock and some Heavy Metal while I kept my tastes centered around 80s Pop music. In high school, you could be found rocking out in the garage to Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Boston, Kansas, and the like. Meanwhile, I loved groups like Duran Duran, Toto, Men at Work, Genesis, Chicago. Our road trips found us listening to both and I learned to appreciate your music. Now, I often to turn to the classic rock station on the satellite radio. It often makes me cry.
• You appreciated that I had an eye for design. Whenever you moved to a new place, you asked me to help you arrange the furniture, pick out wall decorations, and accessories. I was amazed by how spatially inclined you were. There wasn't anything you couldn't put together. You drove a little Mazda 3. Many a time we stood in the Ikea parking lot trying to figure out just how we were going to get home a full-size bed frame, mattress, 4 x 4 Expedit, desk and kitchen paraphernalia. We always got it home.
• While math was your forté, I found writing to be my calling. But you sure did love books and poetry. I was scrolling through old emails looking for something of you to hang onto and found you had sent me many poems that you had found that spoke to both of our hearts.
• Speaking of books. You loved audiobooks. I thought this was weird until our first road trip together. We listened to a book about vampires (so not my genre) called The Passage. Then the sequel The Twelve. Then you got me started listening to Atlas Shrugged. Who would have known that you could get me to listen to a socio-political commentary in novel form. (I should probably listen to it again.) Your brother got me listening to more Sci-Fi. This makes me feel closer to you, too.

All this thinking about how you complemented me led me to create a page in the leather journal you bought for me for my birthday last year.

When this page was finished, my inclination was to send you a text about it. You would have given me lots of compliments and told me how you wished you could actually hold that hand. Today, however, it is I who wishes your hand was here to hold. IMYAITOY