At the funeral, a cousin
I seldom saw repeated a story Jack had told her that he had never mentioned to
me.
Jack’s tale was about a well-dressed stranger he
met one night. He related it as if it
really happened, so said the cousin. I
suppose it could have been real, or maybe a very vivid and certainly memorable
dream. I’ve never been able to decide which.
The story began in the winter of his 9th
grade at school, when he was almost 16 years of age. Jack came to blows with his drinking father
and left their dysfunctional household for a few days. No relatives would welcome him, so he spent a
night in St. John’s Church, the large well-endowed
Catholic edifice in downtown Utica. The church doors were always open, but
there were no lights on, except for the single candle hung over the altar. It
often blew out.
During the night Jack awoke as someone entered
the almost completely dark building, made their way to the side altar, lit a votive
candle and left. The supplicatory
candle, lighted for whom Jack knew not, spit out a weak light across the
church. Jack crawled out from his hiding
place beneath the huge ornate baptismal font and found the rack of perhaps one hundred
small candles, only one now burning feebly.
Thankful for at least a dribble of light, he sat
down in the nearest pew where he could see the frail light play on the statues
of Mary and St. John as they stood watch
over an all but empty church.
When a deep voice behind him said, “Do
you want a penny to light a candle?”
Jack jumped nearly a foot off the bench. As the man walked up into the light, Jack
could see by his clothing he was a man of means. The stranger had a kind face, and after
looking fixedly at Jack for a moment, he walked over to the candles, dropped a
coin in the box and scraped a match into a flame. He moved the flame to one of the candles,
paused and asked, “Will this one do?”
Jack was paralyzed, but shook his head yes.
The man touched the flame to the wick, seemed
satisfied and turned back to Jack and said, “Your family must be worried about
you.” Jack found his tongue, “I don’t
have a family.” The man’s eyebrows raised
a little and then dropped. His face had
a look of complete peace. Either the stranger
saw the lie or sensed the truth of Jack’s predicament, but to Jack it seemed
wonderful to be looking into the eyes of one who was understanding and gentle.
The visitor opened his hands as if to signify
the entire church and said, “Well, this
is your family.” Then he turned and
walked down the aisle, leaving the darkened church. Jack, still immobile, sat looking at his
candle. He knew it had been lit for him.
In time Jack came to have a new family in
addition to those who had bore him and with whom he had been raised. Jack’s birth family was crowded into a teepee
of a house, a ramshackle dump on lower Mohawk St. The entire brood of nine was subject to an
alcoholic father and the needs of a sickly mother. Brothers and sisters and their parents slept
in two bedrooms, as well as the living room, and even the kitchen on cold
nights. Nothing in Jack’s family could
be considered solid or dependable.
Everything changed hourly, ruled by emotions and fueled by drink.
Jack’s new family was ancient and
unchanging. Its adherents were admirable
people and comprised the priests and successful parishioners of St. Johns Parish. As well, the family was universal and
extended even to Italy and Rome. This new family had a daunting degree of
tradition. The “family history” of
Catholicism interested Jack greatly, and he constantly read about it. Seeking to control himself for an eternal
reward, he consulted a host of laws and commandments by which he meant to live
his life. He unsuccessfully recommended
these same strictures to me, his son.
I had known very little of my father’s childhood,
and the story explained a lot to me. The
troubled boy had grown to be a man, met and married my mother and raised three
sons. Through much of that time he
remained rigid and extremely loyal to his church. He scrupulously obeyed each rule.
But toward the end of his life, I noticed the religious
artifacts and observances began to fall away. The pictures of the Sacred Heart on
his apartment’s wall disappeared first and the various Catholic magazines strewn
about went later. I couldn’t tell if this
was due to a loosening of his hard opinions or just an aspect of his aging. Either way, he seemed released, as though he
had gone inside himself, found the worry switch and turned it off.
During his final year, my father lost his footing
in the present and began to slide back into the past. Surprisingly, he no longer mentioned religion
or morals or rules. Toward the end, he spoke
mostly of my late mother, the balm of his sometimes troubled life
In time, Jack’s mind began to live
elsewhere. He never told where he went,
but he always came back happy. Eventually, he didn’t return and I lost him, though
I stood next to his bed, listening to him breathe. I was happy his mind was somewhere pleasant,
but I missed him terribly. I just
wanted to hear his voice once more. He could
have quoted the canons of the Third Lateran Council and it wouldn’t have
mattered to me.
Until I lost my first hero, I had always entertained
the possibility of a heaven. My father’s
death, when it came as I approached my forty sixth birthday, had such finality
that at first I found it impossible to consider he could be alive elsewhere. But as time went on a weak candle of faith
somewhere inside made me want to believe.
For a long while after his funeral I would think of him each time the phone
rang, smiling at the possibility he might be calling from heaven.
And I hoped he was sitting with the well dressed
stranger, among a thousand lit candles in a church no longer filled with
darkness, but instead with a light growing brighter and brighter, as it welcomed
him home to a family now perfected by peace, understanding and love.
copyright
2007/2015 by David Griffin
