Keeping Our Center ~ Day 118

Peter was a delicate, almost porcelain like, scrawny twelve-year-old boy. He did, however, have a Kennedy boy crop of thick gorgeous wavy reddish-brown hair. He had a sad look about him, wide-eyed but staring off. He never seemed sure of anything. He was like one big fidget. His body was all gangly, and moved like a mobile in a gale.

His mother had recently died from pancreatic cancer. It had been an obscenely brief and brutal passing. He came into my office before the funeral, and his new suit hung on him limply, like the air in late August. He caught me at an awkward time, as I had been moved to tears by a passing remembrance of his mother teaching Sunday School. One of the few tasks which ignited and allowed her light to shine.

“Are you OK, Pastor Bill?” Peter asked meekly.

“I think that is supposed to be my line Peter.”

“Well, you seem worse off at the moment, which feels kind of good – to be honest.”

We both chuckled stiffly. I knew he knew that everyone was watching him like a hawk, fearing he might do something rash under these truly tragic circumstances. His whole tone and demeanor told me he was okay, except for having a soul shattered into millions of shards.

I showed him the funeral bulletin, and told him exactly what to expect. I knew he appreciated that, as this had been a long held neurotic need of his. When the kids played a game at youth group, Peter always had to understand each and every rule of the game before beginning. He compulsively had to know exactly what was expected of him.

He maturely thanked me for all the effort to make his mother’s funeral a meaningful event, and told me how much he appreciated it. He shook my hand, with a well-rehearsed tight grip. He joined his father and sister in the lounge, and awaited the music to herald the beginning of the service.

Peter was a clone of his mother. Susan was just as uncomfortable in her own skin, and just as lacking in confidence. Recently she had begun to share with me some “abuse” stories from her childhood, but we never got to the heart of the matter. I just knew she had come from one of those highly secretive backgrounds, carefully encased in the illusion of normalcy.

I was deeply moved by a couple of the speakers who preceded my eulogy, and when I got up to speak, I found my face grimacing, and a frog wedged in my throat. I took a swig of water and several gulps of air, and looked out at the congregation. Peter was in the first row, giving me a thumbs up and nodding vigorously at me.

I was deeply touched. This fragile little boy was offering me all the strength he could muster. He was taking care of me. He was offering me a vote of confidence. He lifted me up, and I rose to the occasion. He nodded at me almost all the way through the homily. Peter’s nod and thumbs up transformed the moment and my spirit. I also suspect it enabled Peter to weather the massive confusion of attending his mother’s funeral at age twelve.

In this time of isolation, quarantine, and social distancing, we need to be vitally aware of our need for being touched. All of us. Every person on the planet. We all need to know we are cared about, we matter, and to know that others are offering their encouragement and attention. Now is a time ripe for heavy doses of compassion.

Make sure you give somebody a sign today. An affirming nod, or thumbs up. Let them know you are there for them. Let them see and experience you have noticed, and that they are not alone. If faith is anything, it is the motivation to declare and confess that we are all in this together.

There are indeed many ways to touch somebody, and myriad opportunities to inform our neighbors that we choose to love them at this very moment. It can be physical, emotional, or spiritual. It can be a pat or a prayer. It can be a caress or a question asked with the sincerity of actually waiting for an answer.

Doesn’t take much! I know I will never forget the young man nodding at me from the front row, and hiding his monstrous grief behind two raised triumphant thumbs. It will always define uplifting for me.

Way way up. Soaring.

Bill Grimbol