Clareified

GOOD FRIDAY*

In the pre “Heat Hotline” days, Winter in East Coco Beach could be brutal. My nighttime rituals involved multi-layering and accessories.
“You ready for bed?”
“Yes!”
“Where’s your other glove?”
“I can’t find it.”
Would be a fairly typical bedtime conversation in the Summers’ household when I was little.
And when the heat disappeared along with the hot water, we would sleep, fully clothed, on chairs in the kitchen in front of the open oven.
If the cold became unbearable we would sleep at my mom’s friends’ houses — me crowding into bed with their kids and my mom dozing on their couches.
The worst days were when we had to stay with mom’s co-worker because we had spent too many nights in a row at her friends’ apartments and didn’t want to risk wearing out her welcome.
He was a cranky, disheveled divorcee, who lived alone in a kitchenette deep in the ghetto of the ECB.
His hair was unkempt, his toenails yellowed and deformed and, though I couldn’t identify it then, his whole person reeked of the stench of urine.
He would open his door for us wearing nothing but boxer shorts, one hand scratching his belly and the other squeezing the remains of a cigarette.
His landlady had never come to get the tattered, stained mattress the previous tenant of his one room apartment left behind, and so, on these occassions, he would lay it flat on the floor a few inches from his bed and that’s where my mom and I would sleep.
Moments after the lights went out, I could hear scratching sounds slide across the floor and the high pitched squeaking that echoes through old apartment buildings.
“Mommy…”
“Ignore them. You’re fine. I’m watching.”
And then she would tell me bible stories until I fell asleep. Jesus being born in a manger was my favorite.
“I wonder if there were rats in there?”
“Probably” she’d laugh.
It was those nights sleeping on a stranger’s old mattress and hundreds just like it in other locales that would blossom into my faith in God and salvation and spirituality.
Hours spent in church and Sunday School were my favorite times of the week.
In the midst of grey ominous skies and dirty threatening streets, the doors to Holy Cross revealed a world of beautiful mosaic floors, colorful stained glass windows, and gaping infinite arches. Each panel, carving and statute telling the story of of God’s love and sacrifice.
I loved being in church. And not just because it was warm and I could feel my fingers and face again. I would quote scripture with the nuns and get pats on my head from Father O’brien when I had asked just a few dozen questions too many.
“Do cops go to hell if they shoot a criminal?”
“If someone kills themself, doesn’t that mean that’s how God wanted them to die?”
“Can God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit see each other or are they all together inside God until they change…like He-Man?”
(Father O’brien would later repeat the story of me asking him that for years until he was promoted to Pastor at another parish. I think he liked the He-Man part most of all.)
But whatever the question, the answer was almost always a combination of believe in God as he believes in you and love thy neighbor as you love yourself.
In essence, have faith.
How do I know Jesus is the son of God?
Because I believe it.
And in believing it, know it.
Just like I knew, even though I was fast asleep, that the mice wouldn’t get me because my mom was watching.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, no, God’s not like Adam and He-Man.

*Well, not like ‘good’ good, like holy good.

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Friday, March 25th, 2005 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.