My wife, Tenacious G, has worked for the same organization for 20 years (while I have never actually managed to work for more than 10 in one year…). This year, her boss of 17 years, and dear friend, the Executive Director is retiring which is pretty stressful to her.

So last night, they held a reception in his honor at Disney Hall downtown, and they had asked her to speak on behalf of the staff.

Speaking along with her were a Superior Court judge, an appellate court judge, and a few name partners at law firms. She wasn’t happy about being asked to speak at all, and was terrified at speaking in that crowd.

“I’m a terrible speaker!” she wailed to me.
But she loves her boss and wanted to honor him, and so sat down and wrote a speech.

I read it, and it wasn’t the speech I would have written – hers was direct and simple while (as you can tell from my writing here sometimes) I’m overfond of rhetorical flourishes. But when I read it and heard it in my head – in her imagined voice – it sounded good.

Little did I know…

There were about two hundred or so people there when the event began. I’d meant to change to a suit, but hadn’t had time (and for my work presentation that morning I was specifically commanded to be in ‘business casual’).

I got her a glass of wine – she was too nervous to eat – and when they called her name, she sighed, shrugged her shoulders, handed me her purse and walked to the podium.

And she blew the room away.

After her first paragraph, the room was silent, and as I looked over the crowd, I could tell how fixed everyone’s attention was on her. She spoke simply, honestly, and with a display of unfiltered affection and emotion. It was amazing; it was something I’ve rarely seen – and I’ve been to a lot of speeches. Four minutes of absolute attention and silence. The focus and energy of two hundred people entirely on her, her words, and the feelings she was conveying with them.

She got kind of teary at the end, wrapped up the speech, and came off the podium to hugs from the other speakers, and a powerful hug from her boss.

The she came over to me and I handed her a Kleenex, hugged her myself, and told her how proud I was of her.

And now I’m telling all of you as well.