An Old Man and a Little Girl

“ Lord, have mercy on me!” I thought as I scrambled into the pew looking appropriately and mournfully dressed, but not as respectfully recollected as I would like to have been for Mr. James’ funeral.

The people were a moderate amount. The coffin was closed. The opening song had already begun. “What a humble service for such a humble man!” I thought.

You see, this was not one of those funerals in which I felt guilty for not having loved enough. Mr. James was a talker. I had already dealt with grief, repentance, and forgiveness toward a relative who was a talker and whom I did not pay enough attention to while he was rapidly declining. I was in high school then. I’m in my late twenties now. I was not going to let that happen again in my life.

Before attending this funeral, I had already gone to graduate school for Marriage and Family counseling and had already dealt with the classic counseling learning curve of managing boundaries: helping others without feeling too responsible for their lives in order to not be brought down and burned out. My experiences in grad school helped me to distance myself from the immediate reaction of guilt others may have experienced at Mr. James’ funeral.

Experiencing the personal mercy and divine love and freedom of living solely before God also helped me to know that I had tried my best to love this man. I was at peace. Being in a state of peace of soul does not mean that there are no emotions. During the homily and in the moments towards the closing of the Mass, I progressed from a silent sniffle to full-on “get me out of here I need to go to the chapel and process all these feelings with Jesus” as I rushed out of church after Mass, barely keeping it together.

What were the causes of these mixed emotions of peace, thanksgiving, hope, and sadness? First, during the funeral, I simply imagined Mr. James, a former marine who had been wheel-chair bound standing up freely, doing cartwheels in heaven, and thanking me and my niece personally for that one time we stopped at his house to give him brownies.

One day, while babysitting my niece during the summer, we baked brownies. Knowing that neither her mom nor I wanted the brownies in the house, I gave some to Ainsley and asked if she wanted to drop some off to Mr. James. As usual, he was in his wheelchair next to his frightening, scrawny dog that barked his head off and looked like he would kill us if we got out of the car. Reassuring Ainsley that I would just be a second, I was able to run out of the car, give him the brownies, and run back, all before the dog (who was tied up) could get me and eat me.

It struck me that the main thought during the entire funeral was of him thanking Ainsley. She was only five or six at the time, yet because she said yes to delivering brownies, he saw God’s love for him through her bringing him the brownies. It was such a simple act, but he was smiling down from Heaven at me standing next to my niece, but he was looking at my niece. 

During the funeral, I silently thanked God for the chance to minister to him in a small way a few weeks before his death. I was also thankful for the occasions when I was a receptionist at the Church parish, and had the opportunity to listen to him talk about the war, my brother in the seminary, how cold the North is, how bad abortion is, and how much I should watch EWTN. Thank you Jesus, for allowing me another chance to love a “talker” and a holy man the right way this go-round. Thank you, also, for reminding me through my imagination of Mr. James at the funeral, that we must teach kids to reach out in love to others. They are God’s treasures.

It seems fitting to end this tribute to my niece and Mr. James with the words of St. Therese the Little Flower: “I rejoice at being little since children alone and those who resemble them will be admitted to the heavenly banquet” (GC1093-1094).

 

Schmidt, Joseph F. Walking the Little Way of Therese of Lisieux: Discovering the Path of Love. Frederick: The Word Among Us Press, 2012.