It was another Monday night at Andy’s Man Club, and I was on sweeper duty. That means standing outside, being the first face people see when they arrive. I do it a lot. I don’t mind it. There’s something about that role that suits me.
A new guy turned up. We had a brief chat outside, the kind you have when someone’s not sure what they’ve walked into. I welcomed him in, we took places in the circle, and the session started.
If you’ve never been to Andy’s Man Club, the opening round is simple. We pass the ball around the circle. Say your first name and a positive reason for being there. That’s it. No pressure, no performance. Just your name and why you showed up.
We got round to the new guy (the one I’d met outside). He said his name, paused, looked across the circle at me and said, “I know who you are. You know my wife.”
I don’t know why, but I just knew. Straight away. No deliberation. I knew exactly who he meant.
A few weeks before, my wife and I had been at the vet with one of our dogs. I was wearing an AMC shirt. One of the nurses there noticed it and said she liked it. Nothing more than that, just a comment.
Next visit, same nurse. She was fussing over the dog, and I noticed a semi-colon tattoo on her wrist. If you know what the semi-colon means in this context, you know it’s not a punctuation choice. I asked her quietly if she’d lost someone. She said yes. Her son.
You could have knocked me down with a feather. What the heck do you say to that?
And now here was her husband, sitting in the circle, and he’d just looked across at me like he already knew where he was meant to be.
I stood up. He stood up. We hugged. In the middle of the circle, in front of everyone. It was instinctive.
That doesn’t sound like much written down, does it. But in that room, it was everything. It was a powerful moment. No words needed, no explanation. Just two people who understood something about each other without having to spell it out.
We talked a lot after that, him and I. About sons. About carrying things you never asked to carry. About the strange, winding paths that get you to a Monday night in a room full of blokes who get it.
None of that happens without AMC.
That’s not sentimentality, it’s just true. Take away the club, take away the shirt, take away the sweeper role on the door, and that moment never exists. Two people who needed to find each other just… don’t.
I think about that sometimes. How many moments like that are out there, waiting for the right door to be open.
If any of this sits with you, even a little, I’m still here. You’re still here. We’ve both made it this far, through whatever it is we’re carrying. That’s not nothing. That’s actually quite a lot.
Keep going.
This is one of those moments I wrote down because I knew I’d want to remember it. I write a lot of things down. Some of them end up here.