So it goes, I suppose. Sometimes, there is no better way to illustrate an honor than by illuminating a flaw.
Sarge was somebody who was pushed into my life when I was eleven years old. He was a peripheral character, a complete stranger, both then and now, and I would be a fool and a liar, if I were to pretend that I really knew his story. I did not know his story. I did not know it’s beginning. I never learned it’s end. I knew only the six hours or so that included my family and myself and the couple of Thanksgiving meals that we shared with him.
But still, ...through and after all these years, his story affects me.
It was my father and mother who deposited him into my memory bank. Typical of parents, especially mine, it was a clumsily executed gesture, one of those awkward parental spectacles that in the midst of dysfunction, in even the most stable of families, would send any healthy adolescent into a fit of eye rolls and sighs.
And my family, at that time, was a long journey away from stability.
And so, almost by obligation, I did what all adolescents do. I resented.
I resented, because, through no fault of his own, Sarge had intruded into my fragile space. Invited seemingly out of the blue to join us for Thanksgiving dinner, (...as I recall my parents had made the offer spontaneously after striking up a conversation with him in a local bar) he had appeared much to the surprise of my brother and myself. He was an old man. An outsider. An emotional interloper with no history, no credibility, no situational awareness. He had no way of understanding. Worst of all, by showing up for dinner he had pushed back the curtain and stepped into my shrunken world of sadness. The dark and hollow and very frightening cave of embarrassment where an eleven year old boy lived knowing the arrival of every sunrise meant the arrival of another day of witnessing the shell of his mother decomposing, in alcoholism, in despair, ...and where he lived with the overwhelming need to somehow, someway, spare her her dignity by keeping her out of view.
A stranger’s presence threatened that.
I remember thinking how distant he seemed from my reality, a squarely shaped man in a world of so many odd angles. I remember the look in Sarge’s eyes. His bowed head and his quiet humble manner. I remember he wore dark wool coats and a button down shirt and a thick knotted tie. I remember his ruddy complexion. I remember his white hair. I remember his slumping shoulders and I remember the awkward sad air that hung around him.
And I knew so little about him. A soldier? A cop? He may have been a great man, he may have been a terrible man. He may have been a hero or a victim or just painfully ordinary, but I had no way of knowing any of that. And even if I’d had that information, my mind was shut tight with resentment and I was damned if I was going to let it be opened with information. So today I can recall little of what I actually saw, and retain barely wisps, of actual memories. What I own today instead, is just a collection of perceptions.
But the lesson carried forward from my experience was not in the minutia of it’s details, it was in the sense of it’s spirit. And though it took years to make sense, it was a valuable lesson after all.
What I sensed first, and most, was the crushing loneliness. A being who’d been forgotten, who’d been washed away in time, and who now sat at a strangers table in a strangers house, a victim of his own longevity.
What I sensed next, was the real gratitude, the appreciation in earnest, from a stranger who’d been brought in from the cold...a wanderer with no clear path and no expectations save the certainty that someday he’d likely die alone.
But what I sensed most...and most importantly, was what I sensed pouring forth from my parents. It was the sense, both common and not, of compassion, and empathy, and the charity of spirit. The sense that just being good, being nice to someone, was a reward in itself. And as much as I tried, the cynical, defensive, ill-advised adolescent that I was, I could not resent those things away. And for that lesson, to my wonderful imperfect impossibly flawed parents, I will always give thanks.
My parents understood little of the root disease that was ravaging our family in those times, only the damage that was being done. But they also understood that when up against the wall, the only way to fight sometimes is with the spirit of charity. The only way towards self-preservation is through a sincere demonstration of understanding that there others out there who are suffering just as bad as you, more likely worse, and that those others, are others who could use your help.
They were not naive. My parents had grown up in equally difficult circumstances, in a challenged American landscape, in challenged American families facing classic American demons, all exacerbated by an economic depression and a staggering world war. So they knew with one meal they could not solve Sarge's problems, or erase his pains, or soften his memories, or change his future, but they could let him know, at least, that somebody out there cared. Actually cared.
My father, in particular, also understood that this was something he needed to teach his children, not just with words but by example. A demonstration that true acts of charity, even modest ones, are never mere gestures, mere acts of token convenience, but meaningful acts of sacrifice, and that they only have real value when the recipient knows that they came from somebody’s heart, somebody who too, has been there, who has known the sorrow of alone.
So our Thanksgiving would be a little bit different in those years, a little bit awkward, a little less comfortable. So we’d sacrifice a little privacy. What the hell. We had a house and a table and the price of a turkey. Most of all, we had each other. We still had each other. In reality, in comparison, we were rich. We had something we could share, and were not going to let that guy spend his Thanksgiving forgotten and alone.
These days the seating arrangements of Thanksgiving have changed, as has my life’s path, as have my perceptions. And from my place at the November table I now see Sarge from an entirely different point of view.
His.
Forty-eight Thanksgivings later, with as little as I ever knew about him, he still is having his affect.
These days, I can feel the weight of life’s loneliness threatening to press it’s imprint upon me, and while I’m not an old man quite yet, I’ve begun to understand that nothing in this world is certain, that I may end my years outliving my accomplishments, and that I too, through the luck of the draw, may end up the evenly shaped man in the oddly shaped world.
That’s the reality. And over it, I have no control.
But I’m not there yet. For now, ...in hopes for always...I still have my health and my family and the love and lessons of my parents, who fought so courageously through such difficult times to instill in their children a sense of hope, and charity, and humor, and who helped me understand just how lucky I really was.
My parents were great people, and I am honored to have had them.
And for that, and for Sarge,
...I give thanks.
© 2012 J. Mark Rast
Sarge was somebody who was pushed into my life when I was eleven years old. He was a peripheral character, a complete stranger, both then and now, and I would be a fool and a liar, if I were to pretend that I really knew his story. I did not know his story. I did not know it’s beginning. I never learned it’s end. I knew only the six hours or so that included my family and myself and the couple of Thanksgiving meals that we shared with him.
But still, ...through and after all these years, his story affects me.
It was my father and mother who deposited him into my memory bank. Typical of parents, especially mine, it was a clumsily executed gesture, one of those awkward parental spectacles that in the midst of dysfunction, in even the most stable of families, would send any healthy adolescent into a fit of eye rolls and sighs.
And my family, at that time, was a long journey away from stability.
And so, almost by obligation, I did what all adolescents do. I resented.
I resented, because, through no fault of his own, Sarge had intruded into my fragile space. Invited seemingly out of the blue to join us for Thanksgiving dinner, (...as I recall my parents had made the offer spontaneously after striking up a conversation with him in a local bar) he had appeared much to the surprise of my brother and myself. He was an old man. An outsider. An emotional interloper with no history, no credibility, no situational awareness. He had no way of understanding. Worst of all, by showing up for dinner he had pushed back the curtain and stepped into my shrunken world of sadness. The dark and hollow and very frightening cave of embarrassment where an eleven year old boy lived knowing the arrival of every sunrise meant the arrival of another day of witnessing the shell of his mother decomposing, in alcoholism, in despair, ...and where he lived with the overwhelming need to somehow, someway, spare her her dignity by keeping her out of view.
A stranger’s presence threatened that.
I remember thinking how distant he seemed from my reality, a squarely shaped man in a world of so many odd angles. I remember the look in Sarge’s eyes. His bowed head and his quiet humble manner. I remember he wore dark wool coats and a button down shirt and a thick knotted tie. I remember his ruddy complexion. I remember his white hair. I remember his slumping shoulders and I remember the awkward sad air that hung around him.
And I knew so little about him. A soldier? A cop? He may have been a great man, he may have been a terrible man. He may have been a hero or a victim or just painfully ordinary, but I had no way of knowing any of that. And even if I’d had that information, my mind was shut tight with resentment and I was damned if I was going to let it be opened with information. So today I can recall little of what I actually saw, and retain barely wisps, of actual memories. What I own today instead, is just a collection of perceptions.
But the lesson carried forward from my experience was not in the minutia of it’s details, it was in the sense of it’s spirit. And though it took years to make sense, it was a valuable lesson after all.
What I sensed first, and most, was the crushing loneliness. A being who’d been forgotten, who’d been washed away in time, and who now sat at a strangers table in a strangers house, a victim of his own longevity.
What I sensed next, was the real gratitude, the appreciation in earnest, from a stranger who’d been brought in from the cold...a wanderer with no clear path and no expectations save the certainty that someday he’d likely die alone.
But what I sensed most...and most importantly, was what I sensed pouring forth from my parents. It was the sense, both common and not, of compassion, and empathy, and the charity of spirit. The sense that just being good, being nice to someone, was a reward in itself. And as much as I tried, the cynical, defensive, ill-advised adolescent that I was, I could not resent those things away. And for that lesson, to my wonderful imperfect impossibly flawed parents, I will always give thanks.
My parents understood little of the root disease that was ravaging our family in those times, only the damage that was being done. But they also understood that when up against the wall, the only way to fight sometimes is with the spirit of charity. The only way towards self-preservation is through a sincere demonstration of understanding that there others out there who are suffering just as bad as you, more likely worse, and that those others, are others who could use your help.
They were not naive. My parents had grown up in equally difficult circumstances, in a challenged American landscape, in challenged American families facing classic American demons, all exacerbated by an economic depression and a staggering world war. So they knew with one meal they could not solve Sarge's problems, or erase his pains, or soften his memories, or change his future, but they could let him know, at least, that somebody out there cared. Actually cared.
My father, in particular, also understood that this was something he needed to teach his children, not just with words but by example. A demonstration that true acts of charity, even modest ones, are never mere gestures, mere acts of token convenience, but meaningful acts of sacrifice, and that they only have real value when the recipient knows that they came from somebody’s heart, somebody who too, has been there, who has known the sorrow of alone.
So our Thanksgiving would be a little bit different in those years, a little bit awkward, a little less comfortable. So we’d sacrifice a little privacy. What the hell. We had a house and a table and the price of a turkey. Most of all, we had each other. We still had each other. In reality, in comparison, we were rich. We had something we could share, and were not going to let that guy spend his Thanksgiving forgotten and alone.
These days the seating arrangements of Thanksgiving have changed, as has my life’s path, as have my perceptions. And from my place at the November table I now see Sarge from an entirely different point of view.
His.
Forty-eight Thanksgivings later, with as little as I ever knew about him, he still is having his affect.
These days, I can feel the weight of life’s loneliness threatening to press it’s imprint upon me, and while I’m not an old man quite yet, I’ve begun to understand that nothing in this world is certain, that I may end my years outliving my accomplishments, and that I too, through the luck of the draw, may end up the evenly shaped man in the oddly shaped world.
That’s the reality. And over it, I have no control.
But I’m not there yet. For now, ...in hopes for always...I still have my health and my family and the love and lessons of my parents, who fought so courageously through such difficult times to instill in their children a sense of hope, and charity, and humor, and who helped me understand just how lucky I really was.
My parents were great people, and I am honored to have had them.
And for that, and for Sarge,
...I give thanks.
© 2012 J. Mark Rast
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