It was a
nice day in a nice suburban neighborhood. The sun shown down upon people
working in flowerbeds or taking walks. Not a thing wrong or out of place to be
seen. I entered the home and was led from the front door into a sun room at the
back of the house. I could have found my way alone by following the tube
running from the oxygen concentrator in the living room.
He might
have been a big man once. Today, the man sitting in the corner chair seemed
shrunken in on himself. He had dark circles around his eyes and a slight tremor
in his hand. His head was bowed. Sitting before him was one of his three
daughters, gently touching him and holding his hands. Tears moved silently down
her cheeks, but she smiled when I introduced myself as the chaplain and she
moved so I could sit near her father.
J. T. was a
veteran of the Vietnam War. He had come back to make a home, raise a family and
then to help his daughters by being a doting grandfather. At age 67, congestive
heart failure was cutting that dream cruelly short.
We talked a
while. I gave him whatever comfort and faithful assurances I could give. When I
rose to leave, J. T. thanked me for coming. Smiling, I said that I was glad I
had found him – that I had almost gotten lost.
J. T. bowed
his head and said so softly that I almost missed it, “People like you never get
lost.”
I paused for
a moment and said, “I seem to need help in finding my way a lot. I’m still
learning from people who showed me the way a long time ago.”
He nodded
quietly and I left, passing the local priest who had arrived to administer the sacraments.
After speaking briefly with J. T.’s daughters, I got into my car and sat there.
“People like
you never get lost,” he had said. God, if he only knew! Sometimes I feel like
getting lost is what I do best. I’ve tried to do and to be a lot of things in
my life. Sometimes I’ve been successful and a lot of times I’ve failed
miserably.
One thing I
have never done is to know exactly what I’m supposed to do and how I’m supposed
to do it. At least not all the time.
I’ve
wandered in the wilderness mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I spent a
year trying to figure out where I fit into the Church (still working on that).
I spent more than a year wondering if I had anything left in my life to offer
to anyone else. I always wonder why I haven’t been a better husband, a better
parent, a better father.
Never get
lost? J. T., if you only knew! I’ve survived by following the spiritual bread
crumbs left behind by so many others. Without their help, knowing and unknowing,
I’d have spent a Biblical amount of time wondering where I was and where I
should be going. I still get up some mornings, look around me and wonder where
the pathway went.
There are
some people who seem to have all the answers all the time. I’m not one of
those. I never will be. I will wander in the wilderness until I stumble upon
some spiritual bread crumbs or a lamppost in a snowy forest to show me the way
for a while.
You see,
people like me get lost all the time.
