For
Frank: The First Time I Met Her
I was sitting in the volunteer office of the church arranging
ballpoint pens under fluorescent lighting and registering in the hard-bound, red
booklet the number of those who attended previous services. Holy Eucharist Rite
I. Holy Eucharist Rite II. Holy Eucharist with Healing. I despise fluorescent
lighting. It makes me feel like some rattled, disturbed scientist is holding every
piece of my skin under the lens of a high-powered microscope.
Then she appeared in the doorway, diminutive, her old
face wrinkled and her white hair shining like a baby dove. “I don’t believe
we’ve met yet. I’m Minerva, and you are?”
Bored and uninspired by her, I told her my name. It’s
Julie. She asked questions. I answered them.
“Well, Julie, it’s a delight to meet you. Jacques
tells me you are here to help out and I’m so glad you are. I’ve lived a long,
full life, thankfully, and I’m still here to talk about it to those who are
blind or stupid enough to listen,” and she guffawed merrily, like someone else
had told us a profoundly hilarious joke and I had failed to laugh.
Instead, I stared at her, suspecting and thinking,
without noticing it, like almost anyone would, and as only the young and
nonchalant can, that her next home might very soon be the cemetery.
She heard my thoughts immediately, and her frail
left hand grabbed my wrist and squeezed it hard. Until that moment, I don’t
think I’d felt it myself; that it was a part of my body.
“You know, Julie, when I was young, I was required to
memorize poetry. It has served me well. I want you to hear some lines about death.
I’d say that you learned William Cullen Bryant’s ‘Thanatopsis’ when you were in
school majoring in English, yes?”
“Yes”, I said, but I couldn’t remember one single
word of it. In fact, until she mentioned it, I’d forgotten the poem existed.
Too many experiences since then? All of them washed in a sea of hormones and
youth? I was horribly embarrassed.
“This is what I want you to hear, Julie, so listen
closely.”
“So live that when thy
summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”
She turned around, her
back to me, and told me once more that it was a pleasure to meet me. Then loudly
shutting the enormously arched, red door of the Parish Hall behind her, she
left.
Today, when I saw her
five-foot-two frame in the Sunday school hallway that smells like old books and
the dirty hands that have held them, she stopped me and said, “I want to tell
you something.”
This woman, whom I’ve
heard for several weeks now quote George Bernard Shaw and other timeless
writers, placed one hand on each of my shoulders, looked me straight in the
eyes and said, “You are a child of God, Julie, and nothing will ever change
that.”
