Old Man Church

Something I was really unsure about publishing... it's short, but it kind of meant a lot to me, writing it. Again, I wrote this a few years ago, beginning of 9th grade.

It was the end of the 9:00 mass in St. Luke's church, and everyone had left to the auditorium for coffee and donuts.

I lingered over my sheet music, staring at the notes and words, and trying to hold the melody of the hymn in my head, but it was breaking apart and fraying away like cobwebs in the front doors, and the subtleties of the piece were lost in the stamping of feet and murmur of voices all around me. I tried again, then gave up, shoving the music into my binder and packing away my instrument.

I walked into the auditorium. It was a trick to maneuver around everyone without spilling someone’s hot chocolate or decaf coffee all over their dress shirt. Many were so deep in conversation they may not have even noticed their drink splattered across their collar. In my preoccupied state of mind, I was lucky not to bump into anyone.

I grabbed a donut and poured a hot chocolate. I was making my way towards a slightly less congested traffic area when I saw the old man.

He was sitting in the middle of a totally empty table. Completely empty, except for some crumpled napkins and crumbs that implied the previous occupants had left quickly when he came and sat down. For the most part, everyone ignored him - brushed by without even a glance - or they scowled viciously at the back of his head. He was slouched over, with a thunderous frown scrawled across his face, his forehead a mass of lines and wrinkles. His white hair was haywire all over his head, and he had an equally disgruntled white beard to match. In his hands, he held a baby girl, in a pink hat and onesie, who was screaming her head off and straining in his hands.

The reason everyone was treating him so rudely was, in hindsight, apparent. His black scowl, his dark eyes sweeping the crowd, daring someone to challenge him. His mussed-up beard, hair, and slightly wrinkled shirt. The screaming child. But at the time, it had seemed inexplicable, like a man long excommunicated that had swaggered into the church after many years and brazenly camped himself in the middle of the auditorium.

I grabbed my chocolate and an extra donut and walked over to where he was sitting. His eyes snapped right to me as I sat down, keeping his scowl in place without portraying the bemusement he may have been feeling. However, in contrast, the child stopped screaming and started whimpering, her eyes on mine.

“Good morning,” I began cheerfully, “My name is Rosemary.”

He did not reply, but a few of the lines crossing his forehead relaxed and disappeared.

“I loved that last piece,” I went on, “Mary Did You Know. I sometimes feel a special connection to that piece; it was the first one I played with the violin, and I actually played it perfectly the first time. But it was nothing compared to the full choir, singing the words, and the guitar and piano and voices and violin, everything somehow just captured me.”

I paused a moment, then went on. “Maybe it was because half my name is named after her, Mary. I don’t feel like I relate to her at all, but I sometimes feel full of faith to God that I feel a connection to what may have driven her to accept God’s decision and his son.”

I paused again. I wondered why I was doing this, chatting with a homeless man as if he was a friend I had known from childhood. After twenty-five years, those friends just sort of fade into the background of your memory, leaving a lasting but distant impression, like the subtle melding of colors on a brilliant tapestry.

I continued to talk, and had moved from the subject of music to friends, and it wasn’t long before I mentioned this impression to him. As I spoke, the child in his arms stopped whimpering and stared at me, a strange but contented expression on her face. Whenever I paused, though, she began to fuss again.

“All my friends from childhood have moved away, or died, or are still there but we aren’t seeing each other anymore. My friends now feel just as special as my old friends did then, but not as vital or as treasured. I don’t especially like this attitude - every friend should be equally treasured - but my childhood friends are the ones that made the most impression on me, during my childhood, and have made me to what I am now.”

I do not know why I was speaking so long to this man who did not answer, why I was sharing everything I had once rehearsed in my head but never spoken aloud. I discussed music, friends, emotions, philosophy, good and evil, debates, school, work, science, general religion, Jesus and Christmas. As I spoke, the auditorium emptied, with a last conversation petering off and the last rude stare from a random stranger. I felt like a load, a huge weight, slowly being lifted off through my words, and began to realize how much I had wanted this; to tell a person about me, the thoughts I never spoke, the ideas I never wrote, the stories I never shared, the rants I never uttered, and not to be ridiculed in return, to only receive listening in response. There were several times I even cried, and had to use one of the abandoned crumpled napkins to dry my eyes, because I felt that if I got up to find a tissue, I could not sit back down and continue like this, so naturally.

Later, I was still talking, and I heard the piece again, Mary Did You Know, coming from the open doors. It was the 11:00 mass, around the end of the service, and people had already left the pews and were milling around the table with donuts, waiting for the coffee to come back out, for their friends to finish the song and start chatting with them about their lives and what they were planning after Christmas.

When at last I finished, the auditorium was emptying once again. The man had barely moved, but all the lines on his forehead had smoothed over, and his expression was no longer thunderous, but merely the look of rapt and earnest attention. The baby child in his arms had fallen asleep, a blissful sweet smile of contention stretched across her face. I didn’t know how to leave politely, without awkwardness, or if I could possibly leave at all. How do you leave a man to whom you had just poured out your soul?

We sat in silence for a minute or so, then I stood up. “Thank you so much for your time. You have no idea how much this means to me. I appreciate it.”

I bowed my head, tried to smile warmly, it came out wobbly, then I turned and left. I felt his eyes on the back of my head all the way to the exit.

Now, I have wondered, so long, for hours about this man and the baby girl in his hands. I felt then like I was a well, a well full of tears and laughter and ideas and confessions, that had just been emptied by a man that was dying of thirst. It has now been two years since I spoke with this man, and I could feel the well beginning to fill again. I also felt amazed by how refreshed I felt afterwards, like I was the one that needed the attention that the man and his child so unquestionably and so completely gave to me, without ridicule or cynicism. This attention that he gave me that morning after the 9:00 mass is not such a great mark on my tapestry, the actual event. But in time, the thread that was woven then has now woven over the entire tapestry, a vibrant color that once just occupied the upper corner, now a color that has fit itself into every aspect of my being, and of my life now.