It was a little bit before Easter midnight mass and we were supposed to be quiet, subdued things in pretty clothes and halos. For we were about to be confirmed! Yes, confirmed. For all those who aren’t in the in, that basically means we go up to the altar, get our faces smeared with oil, and then go back again.
…as you can see, I’m very religious.
So we were about to be confirmed. And we were waiting for our sponsors, aka cheerleaders of faith. Not that my sister and I really took that seriously. We were supposed to have sponsors picked by November at the latest, and for some reason we had ours picked in March. Or possibly April. I don’t know. And yes, I said ours. My possible sponsors couldn’t come so I had my sister’s sponsor, Jerry, who was supposedly really cool and stuff. He liked classic movies, The Beatles, public speaking…
Did I mention he was blind? Because he is.
Oh well.
Anyway, we were all together in the hall, waiting to go into church, complete with angelic faces, and get said faces smeared with thick smelly oil. And I was nervous. Maybe it was because I only met him once before. I looked around to see him… and lo! There he was!
He was dressed in a leather coat… perhaps suade? It was brown and kind of beat-up anyway. And he had a blue shirt on. I think.
Okay, so I'm bad at descriptions. What I did notice, and notice very well, was his big goofy smile and his cane, neatly hung on his arm. His eyes were a little weird… they didn’t twinkle like you would expect they would for a man smiling that much, but then again, he’s blind, so that’s expected.
One thing I learned with my experiences of blind people is that their eyes look like fog. That is, usually when you look at people’s eyes, they have this brightness to them, an alertness that screams life! His eyes reminded me of San Francisco in summertime.
We greeted each other and he gave us gifts. Rosaries for the each of us, and a pretty card to boot! He gave us the wrong ones, but my sister and I quickly switched them around and admired our rosaries.
I have several rosaries, but I always forget them at the proper time. My grandma died recently and we had a rosary for her but, though I was an altar server at the time, I had no rosary to pray on. She would be disappointed, I’m sure. She was always a good Catholic with a rosary in hand.
I love the feel of the rosaries. I love how they slide in your hands and I love how it doesn’t matter if they’re chunky or thick or pale or gaudy or light or heavy… it doesn’t matter. No matter what they look like, they’re there and they’re blessed.
Before we went into church with our imagined halos, we talked. And all of us talked loudly. There were movies and Beatles and driving lessons to talk about. No, we never drove… Jerry did. It was a funny story.
Basically, what had happened was in an abandoned parking lot, his wife gave him the wheel and he did a couple of turns. He must have been very wild because a bunch of boys watched him… and wondered why a grown man was doing it. His wife reports that they nearly fell over when he brought out his cane!
I liked the story. I like it when men act like boys. It makes me feel better about growing up.
After some discussion, it was decided that I would be the one that Jerry would come in with. That is, he would come in with both my sister and me, but I would be the one to lead him. I grabbed his hand, as I would normally do, but he stopped me and grabbed my elbow instead. He told me that it helped him more. He told me that it gave him more information about where we were. He also told me not to walk him into any doors…
I almost did, actually. I tried to be a good leader, but inevitably, the spacing I gave him was not enough. When we were called to all go to church, outside of our comfy little space, a rush of people headed for the door and I rushed to go with them. Lucky for me, he was used to clumsy people and, when he stepped down the stairs, he didn’t quite hit the steel railing that separated the grass from the concrete.
Oops.
We were supposed to meet at the spiritual garden and walk all the way to church that way, but alas! Jesus Christ had mercy on us and made it rain so we didn’t have to go there. Which is good. Gang violence exists over there. I know because one time I was fighting with my brother on the way to church (how fitting, no?) and one guy threatened to call the cops on us just because we were yelling at each other. It can get bad there. Later, one of the guys that would be confirmed with us would be shot and killed by a cop for resisting arrest.
So it goes.
It was a cold evening that night, well, relatively cold for California anyway, and rainy besides that, so we were grateful to see a roaring bonfire in front of church. When we would walk into the church to be confirmed, it would be completely dark inside, or so we heard. Jerry joked about that a little, said he could lead us in without a problem. It was funny.
I was still a little awkward, I admit, talking about his blindness, but I felt better. I asked him if he could see anything. He paused for a moment before saying that he could see light. Then, to prove this, he pointed up to the sky.
I looked up, quite nonchalantly, and saw a fuzzy florescent light flickering on and off. It wasn’t a really good light – actually, it was kind of depressing how weak it was. But he could see it, and that was enough.
“Is there a light?” he asked, his voice mildly interested and mildly concerned.
“Yeah.”
I focused more on bringing him to the church.
The chatter was dying down as we went closer to the large doors that led to a dark church. There was still talk, especially around the bonfire, but while we walked, it was quiet. I looked at the flickering row of lights that led to the doors and asked him whether he could see that.
He said no.
We went closer to the bonfire. This was where the talk was, our bodies wriggling together, desperately trying to get closer to the fire. I was no exception. I didn’t want to wear a jacket, not for such a short distance, and I was cold. Carefully, because I still had Jerry on my arm, I led him to the fire. He was closer to it then I was, but it was okay. Both of us were warm.
I was excited and babbling nervously about something. I forget what. I don’t think it was that important, actually. I wanted to make sure that everything went all right and he teased me. My sister would have probably teased me also, but she was behind us and couldn’t hear us very well. It was rather noisy. I didn’t help.
The adults shushed us and they started to open the doors to the darkened church. It was rather creepy, actually. I had gone to church at night, but it was pitch black inside and I didn’t want to leave the warm fire.
The people in the front started going in the church, though it seemed more like a cave it was so dark. The line was slow. I watched the other people go past us. I didn’t want to go yet. I turned to my sister.
“Ready?”
Another adult shushed us. I was getting more nervous.
Perhaps it was because of my tense arm. I’m not sure. But Jerry nudged me. I glanced at him. A smile was on his face and his eyes sparkled.
“I can see the fire.”
I smiled back.
“Let’s go inside.”
What did you mean to say when you said this:
