There was something about Carl that I could never fully describe. And I would try. I'd relentlessly try to tell people about this man I worked with and his amazing drawings and designs, but I just had inadequate words to describe him and his gifts. I had never met or seen anyone work like this before, especially a designer. I would see him quietly sketching in his little black book every day, throughout the day, taking small things into three dimensions loaded with brilliant colors and toy-like features, and I wondered how he saw it all in his seemingly quiet mind. What did this fascinating brain really see before he took it to his fingers and pushed it out through his pencils and pens and onto paper?
“Carl what are you working on? Can I see?” and he’d show me his work like they were stick-figured cartoons.
“This is incredible. Incredible! How do you do it?”
I think he got tired of listening to me constantly telling him how awesome he was, but I didn’t care ~ I might have been a broken record to him, but I couldn’t help it. His humble demeanor blew me away every day when he came through the studio’s double-metal doors with his bike and helmet. He was the most gifted artist and designer I had ever met, and I had worked with many talented artists over the years.
There was a girl who had broken his heart the year before I met Carl. He had asked her to marry him and they were engaged until he found out the truth about her, something that silently tore him apart. He reluctantly told me what happened on a day when I had asked too many questions over lunch. I was always asking him questions, though, and he would politely answer, always shy and a bit wary of women and for good reason.
He worked quietly and seriously in the office, but then when he would bust out laughing and his giant smile opened wide and made you sing, I would think to myself, How could she do it? Rip this angel of a smile to shreds? I wanted to hunt her down and confront her, make her pay for what she did to my buddy Carl. I might have secretly wished that Carl was my real brother. Maybe that’s why I asked him so many questions about his family in Asia. Unbeknownced to Carl, I’d dreamed of having a younger sibling my whole life, particularly an Asian brother or sister, and I never really knew why. Years later I found out that my father had wanted to adopt a Vietnamese baby after I was born. Maybe I overhead my father talking about it when I was a child? I don’t know… but very soon after I met Carl at Motorola, I felt this unexplained kinship to protect this very tall, little buddy of mine, Carl Liu.
To see him now so happy with a genuinely beautiful, loyal partner and their two gorgeous girls, makes my heart sing gospels on this Sunday morning. “Carl Liu! Look at you!” Your blossomed smile brings me such joy today, little buddy. I knew from the moment I saw your work that you had incredible gifts to offer the world.
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