In a Room full of Love....
Standing at the front of the church, I was surrounded not only by the kind faces of the congregation in their pews. I was also encircled by my own memories and thoughts. It often strikes me that even the most intense moments of communion leave some private core of a person quite alone. 'Self-conscious' is a term often bandied about. But when are we ever not conscious of our very own 'Self-hood?'
I felt so shy and bashful to find myself far from the back pew (where I imagined that I hid in anonymity) facing the entire parish. My embarrassment sharply intensified as my beloved friend, M., stood proudly in the middle aisle snapping pictures. And, in a moment of combined vanity and shame, I hoped that I looked good, immediately before regretting that I was considering my appearance at such a time.
Physically, I felt the stray drops of water that ran in rivulets down my head, onto my shoulders and chest. They were not so many, or as cold, as I imagined so the sensation was not unpleasant. Actively pleasant was the imprint of the pastor's warm and loving hand upon my head. My skin seemed marked by the joy of having been so blessed and I wanted to lean into his comforting mass.
My strongest feeling, though, was a searing stab of grief that seemed to tear at my midsection. For, even enveloped by a palpable wave of love, I still saw flashes of the most desperate solitude and misery. As my ears heard the intonations of the pastor, and the approving murmurs of his flock, my mind heard a small cracked voice. It was softer than the brush of moth wings. In my heart, I was in the ambulance, holding the tiny dry hand of an old woman who would surely die. In church, I shed the tears that had been pressing at the back of my throat since I met the old woman. These were the tears that had threatened my vision as I tried to start an impossible intravenous line, that might deliver life-saving hydration. Tears that I swallowed so that I managed to see my needle and pierce her only once. Even that small discomfort was one that I wish she was spared. How much can a person endure, before they can endure no more? Suffering that can be absorbed is far greater than most people can imagine. The old woman's neglect was staggering. She had been trapped without food or water for days. She was weak, emaciated and confined, without grooming, for weeks. Flinching in fear at every abrupt noise or movement, she still tried to tell me something, in her broken voice. I heard only the sound of wrinkling tissue paper, so thin the vocalization was.
In that happy warm church, the contrast devastated me. Clean, well-loved, well-fed (some might say to excess), I was pained that her last months had not been so. As much as the juxtaposition made me raw with sadness (and a sharp guilt for my spieces), I tried not to avoid the truth of it, or to forget her. In being grateful for my own blessings, I will try to honor a very tiny, very brave old woman... now gone.
I felt so shy and bashful to find myself far from the back pew (where I imagined that I hid in anonymity) facing the entire parish. My embarrassment sharply intensified as my beloved friend, M., stood proudly in the middle aisle snapping pictures. And, in a moment of combined vanity and shame, I hoped that I looked good, immediately before regretting that I was considering my appearance at such a time.
Physically, I felt the stray drops of water that ran in rivulets down my head, onto my shoulders and chest. They were not so many, or as cold, as I imagined so the sensation was not unpleasant. Actively pleasant was the imprint of the pastor's warm and loving hand upon my head. My skin seemed marked by the joy of having been so blessed and I wanted to lean into his comforting mass.
My strongest feeling, though, was a searing stab of grief that seemed to tear at my midsection. For, even enveloped by a palpable wave of love, I still saw flashes of the most desperate solitude and misery. As my ears heard the intonations of the pastor, and the approving murmurs of his flock, my mind heard a small cracked voice. It was softer than the brush of moth wings. In my heart, I was in the ambulance, holding the tiny dry hand of an old woman who would surely die. In church, I shed the tears that had been pressing at the back of my throat since I met the old woman. These were the tears that had threatened my vision as I tried to start an impossible intravenous line, that might deliver life-saving hydration. Tears that I swallowed so that I managed to see my needle and pierce her only once. Even that small discomfort was one that I wish she was spared. How much can a person endure, before they can endure no more? Suffering that can be absorbed is far greater than most people can imagine. The old woman's neglect was staggering. She had been trapped without food or water for days. She was weak, emaciated and confined, without grooming, for weeks. Flinching in fear at every abrupt noise or movement, she still tried to tell me something, in her broken voice. I heard only the sound of wrinkling tissue paper, so thin the vocalization was.
In that happy warm church, the contrast devastated me. Clean, well-loved, well-fed (some might say to excess), I was pained that her last months had not been so. As much as the juxtaposition made me raw with sadness (and a sharp guilt for my spieces), I tried not to avoid the truth of it, or to forget her. In being grateful for my own blessings, I will try to honor a very tiny, very brave old woman... now gone.