It’s snowing here on the mountain this morning. Our Lady’s looks quite pretty from the outside. Earlier I walked down the driveway to the road just to be out in the snow. Huffing and puffing my way back up I could see the Chapter House through the trees with snow lying on the old porch roofs and covering the tiny lawn that just a week or so ago was an ugly brown. But now a coat of white innocence covers the house with a temporary relief for the eyes, but it is not a cure for the decrepitude.
It brought to mind a conversation I had last winter in the village with a middle aged woman who sat down next to me at the drop-in place on Rock City Road. People do that. They see a guy in a monk’s robe and sit down next to him as if he were their confessor having come to meet them at the appointed time. I’m still waiting for someone to begin, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”
It was a snowy afternoon and outside the window a naked tree, now dark and wet and leafless, grabbed the falling snowflakes to cover itself with a coat of innocent white. The woman’s mood was somber. After an exchange of “weather evaluation” as I call it … “Isn’t it nice today! Yes, a little cool, etc.” … the woman quickly got to what was bothering her. I’m sure she thought about it at least briefly every day of her life, but on that day the sore smarted enough for her to seek someone out, the telling like a salve that gave some relief but didn’t cure.
“He kicked me out!” she said, “my own father. Called me a whore and dragged me out the front door and slammed it shut. And locked it! I was only 16, for god’s sake. My idiot mother stood there frozen like a statue.
“That’s pretty awful,” I said.
“It was snowing, for god’s sake, and I looked behind me on the sidewalk and saw my stuff coming down from the upstairs window. He’s up there throwing my clothes and my dolls and my makeup and all my stuff out the fucking window like a crazy man. I went nuts. I started banging on the front door and I kept it up until my hands bled and I screamed into the windows and I cursed the assholes and I threw up and I choked and I cried until I thought I’d die, for Chrissake.”
She became quiet as she stared out the window.
“What happened,” I said after a minute.
She pulled her eyes away from the window and looked down at her hands.
“I died,” she said quietly. “I just plain ol’ died.”
She remained quiet while I thought about how lucky I had been ... blessed is the word. All I ever wanted from my father was his hope for me. Had he withheld it, I would have been devastated. And he owed me something else, more than food and shelter and the many other things he provided. He owed me respect. Respect as a human being, as a person and as a child of God. I am grateful my father did indeed love me enough to respect me and hope for me. Those were the only gifts I really needed, along with his example to give them away.
A child of any age needs a parent to stand by her side, wishing for success and happiness. A man or a woman needs a woman or a man who loves them unconditionally and hopes only for the best. Without respect and hope we die. Plain ol’ die.
Ed Townsend - For Your Love
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