Who Knows Your Favorite Color? (And Whose Do You Know?)

This past weekend we went to a funeral. It was actually so much more than a funeral - it was a community gathering for a woman who was deeply loved, deeply known, and deeply involved in my favorite community. You could feel the emotions in the room - tension, grief, comfort - the air was heavy with all the feels of losing someone who meant so much to so many.

 

As we found our seats, we landed in front of my aunt and uncle - two of her closest friends. We greeted them, and my uncle looked at me and said, with a soft tear in his breath: "You're wearing Angie's favorite color. She would love that jacket."

 

There it was! I had chosen the jacket with her in mind because it was leather(ish), cute but slightly rugged, and it felt like a nod to her love of riding. It was my subtle tribute to her - but I had no clue it was her favorite color...but Roger did.

 

I sat with that throughout the day...or perhaps it sat with me. The comment, the color, the strange weight of being told I was wearing something she would have loved. Then I started noticing I wasn't the only one. There were others - quietly, consciously or unconsciously - wearing the same shade. That doesn't feel like happenstance.

 

I'm not going to claim that knowing someone's favorite color is the ultimate test of the depth or significance of a relationship. I'm not suggesting we all need to walk around with a cheat sheet of all our loved ones' favorite colors. However, I am saying if you do know someone's favorite color, it's because you've earned that knowledge. You've earned it in a way that says, "I've seen you, really seen you."

 

You were there when they picked the pink mug every time. You remember when they bought the mustard yellow couch that nobody else would even consider. You felt the joy in their voice when they said, "Look at that bright orange sky," and it was the exact shade of orange they strategically worked into their daily wardrobe.

 

That's not a surface level, forgettable, relationship.

 

What struck me was that I hadn't consciously chosen her favorite color. We weren't that close, and I never knew it. However, somehow in choosing something that felt like her, I chose it. As my mind wondered, I couldn't help but think:

 

Who knows my favorite color?

Whose favorite color do I know?

 

Metaphorically, of course. What do I know about my people who make them...them. The tone they move through the world with, the things that quietly light them up, the parts of their personality that don't announce themselves but are always there, waiting to be seen.

 

How often do I actually SEE people that way?

 

That's where this inward reflection cracked way open. It made me ask how often I mistake "getting to know someone" for running through a standard checklist. Favorite food, job, family origin story - ...but knowing someone's favorite color (literal or not) means I've done more than listen - I've noticed. I've noticed the choices they've made when nobody's watching.

 

It's easy to think of details like that as superficial. "Favorite color" feels like a sleepover question from middle school. However, now I'm starting to believe when we take notes of someone's inner pallet, we're moving into sacred territory. That's not performative closeness, that's REAL closeness...because nobody actually remembers your favorite color. They either KNOW you or they don't.

 

This jacket didn't simply remind someone of Angie. It revealed that someone had been paying attention to her for years. It revealed that she was the kind of person whose favorite color was known by those who loved her.

 

It made me want to pay better attention. I don't mean in some creepy, over-functioning, "memorize everyone's astrological sign" kind of way. Instead, in a way that lets people know they're seen and that they leave behind little echoes of themselves in all they do.

 

That's quite a remarkable legacy to leave behind:

I noticed this about you.

I remembered it.

It mattered.

YOU mattered.

 

RIP, Angie. You were quite obviously loved beyond words and are still loved beyond the grave - you mattered.