A Special Place in My Heart

 A Special Place in MY HEART

Episode #3

Long before I asked the question,

Who are YOU?

I had already begun looking for the answer.

I was only about three years old.

I can still see myself in my little Buster Browns and a sun suit on a hot summer Sunday.

Daddy wasn't dead yet.

He was gone.

No visit this Sunday.

I was too young to walk to St. James's by myself or understand the word “divorce.”

Mom and Unc sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading the Sunday paper, swapping sections back and forth.

Bobby was out with his friends.

Ma sat quietly in her rocker with her pipin' hot tea, crocheting.

Such was our family now.

I didn't know what to do with myself.

"Why don't you take your beach pail and shovel outside for a while?" Ma suggested.

It was too hot in the front yard, so I wandered over to the shady side of the house.

Calling it a yard would have been generous.

It was really more of an alley.

The old wooden fence leaned tiredly against itself, busted, bent, weathered gray, full of splinters.

There wasn't much grass.

Mostly weeds.

Beside the piazza grew Ma's roses—the one patch of beauty in an otherwise unkempt yahd.

This was Slummerville, after all, long before gentrification.

I sat down and began to dig.

City dirt doesn't give itself up easily.

It was hard-packed and dusty.

I hacked away with my shovel until I managed to fill the pail with a few respectable scoops.

Then...

Out of nowhere...

came a bumble bee.

It swooped down and began circling me.

Round and round.

I remember staring at it.

It looked so fat.

How could those tiny little wings possibly keep that enormous thing in the air?

Then another thought came.

It can sting.

I froze.

The bee kept circling.

Round and round.

I watched.

I waited.

I timed its circumferential flight, then cut a tangent to the other side.

And then I ran for my life.

As fast as my little legs could carry me.

I burst through the front door and slammed it shut, spread-eagled against it to guard against the insect’s entry.

I raced into the kitchen.

Only Ma was there.

Still rocking.

Still crocheting.

"Why, Buddy Bresnahan...what's all this commotion?"

"Ma...there's a bee."

She set the crocheting down.

The rocker stopped.

She didn't even take another sip of tea.

She simply opened her arms.

"There, there, Buddy.

It's all right."

She held me close.

And everything was all right just like she said it was.

It would be decades before I understood why that encounter stayed with me.

Not because of the bee.

Because, somehow, even then, something deep inside me stirred.

It was only the faintest inkling.

The mystery began.

Who are YOU?

Five years later, everything was different.

Daddy was dead.

For months after he died, I still ran to the window whenever I heard what sounded like his Chevy.

Maybe it was Daddy.

Maybe his white 1951 Chevrolet would magically appear.

Maybe he would come to pick me up.

He never did again.

He never, ever did again.

Eventually I turned away from the window and walked by myself to St. James's.

I loved that church.

The organ.

The choir.

The stained glass.

The old oak pews.

And the widows.

The widows always seemed glad to see me.

There was one man there I remember especially.

Mr. Fletcher, our minister.

He knew my daddy had died.

One time he visited our home.

Ma made tea and cookies and cake.

He asked Mom and Ma how they were doing.

Then he looked at me and asked me how I was doing.

“I’m fine, Mr. Fletcher.”

I wanted to please him.

He called me over to him and took me onto his knee.

I can still remember how much he cared.

He simply held me.

Weeks came and weeks went.

Months came and months went.

Then, after church one Sunday, I started home along Massachusetts Avenue.

Cars and trucks went by.

The trolley clattered along its tracks.

Shop windows were abandoned and soaped up.

People hurried about their business.

And somewhere along the way there was an unkempt hedge.

Scrawny.

Neglected.

The sort of thing nobody would notice.

Except that day I noticed it.

Several leaves on the haphazard hedge hung out beyond a chain-link fence.

I grabbed one.

A solitary leaf.

Then I pressed my thumbnail into it.

The nail broke through the surface.

Green chlorophyll discolored my thumbnail.

Its lifeblood.

Then I stopped.

I killed the leaf.

It was in that moment that Something in my heart spoke to me.

There were no voices, just a sense.

And yet it was articulate and clear.

The Sense said,

Don't you know there is a special place in MY HEART for your dad?

I stood there.

The traffic continued.

The trolley continued.

Somerville continued.

But something had happened.

I ran home.

Ma was there.

This was urgent.

"Ma, is there a God?"

"Of course there is."

"Ma, is there a Heaven?"

"Of course there is."

"Ma, is my daddy there?”

Here is where Ma hesitated. 

Often she said that it was the Irish who had ruined Boston.

I hadn’t connected the dots then, but I wonder now what passed through her mind. The prospect of spending eternity with that Irishman after the divorce may have given her pause.

Oh, the synapses that must have fired in her mind then.

But she hesitated but for only a moment.

Then she knelt down and pulled me toward her.

She placed my head into the nape of her neck.

And it is as though I can still smell her hair to this day.

And then she said,

"Of course he is."

Oh how my heart leapt for joy then.

I hugged her close and loved her and she loved me.

We had lunch and then I went out to play.

Later that night, the Silence was still there.

But now there was a Presence together with it.

I remember smiling to the Presence.

And I remember calling out to the stars above and the world below,

“Don’t you know there’s a special place in MY HEART for your dad?”

That settles it.

Ma said so.

There is a God.

There is a Heaven.

And my daddy’s there.

I know much more theology now than I did then.

Or at least I have read many more books.

But I still return to that shabby hedge beside Massachusetts Avenue.

A little boy.

A solitary leaf.

A dead father.

And Silence.

And then YOU spoke to me somewhere in my heart.

Or at least I think that was YOU.

“There’s a special place in MY HEART for your dad.”

The message was crystal clear and has stayed with me a lifetime.

For me Nothing became a Silence.

The Silence became a Presence.

The Presence became a Companion.

And the Companion I spoke with in wonder in the Night Season A Special Place in MY HEART

Long before I asked the question,

Who are YOU?

I had already begun looking for the answer.

I was only about three years old.

I can still see myself in my little Buster Browns and a sun suit on a hot summer Sunday.

Daddy wasn't dead yet.

He was gone.

No visit this Sunday.

I was too young to walk to St. James's by myself or understand the word “divorce.”

Mom and Unc sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading the Sunday paper, swapping sections back and forth.

Bobby was out with his friends.

Ma sat quietly in her rocker with her pipin' hot tea, crocheting.

Such was our family now.

I didn't know what to do with myself.

"Why don't you take your beach pail and shovel outside for a while?" Ma suggested.

It was too hot in the front yard, so I wandered over to the shady side of the house.

Calling it a yard would have been generous.

It was really more of an alley.

The old wooden fence leaned tiredly against itself, busted, bent, weathered gray, full of splinters.

There wasn't much grass.

Mostly weeds.

Beside the piazza grew Ma's roses—the one patch of beauty in an otherwise unkempt yahd.

This was Slummerville, after all, long before gentrification.

I sat down and began to dig.

City dirt doesn't give itself up easily.

It was hard-packed and dusty.

I hacked away with my shovel until I managed to fill the pail with a few respectable scoops.

Then...

Out of nowhere...

came a bumble bee.

It swooped down and began circling me.

Round and round.

I remember staring at it.

It looked so fat.

How could those tiny little wings possibly keep that enormous thing in the air?

Then another thought came.

It can sting.

I froze.

The bee kept circling.

Round and round.

I watched.

I waited.

I timed its circumferential flight, then cut a tangent to the other side.

And then I ran for my life.

As fast as my little legs could carry me.

I burst through the front door and slammed it shut, spread-eagled against it to guard against the insect’s entry.

I raced into the kitchen.

Only Ma was there.

Still rocking.

Still crocheting.

"Why, Buddy Bresnahan...what's all this commotion?"

"Ma...there's a bee."

She set the crocheting down.

The rocker stopped.

She didn't even take another sip of tea.

She simply opened her arms.

"There, there, Buddy.

It's all right."

She held me close.

And everything was all right just like she said it was.

It would be decades before I understood why that encounter stayed with me.

Not because of the bee.

Because, somehow, even then, something deep inside me stirred.

It was only the faintest inkling.

The mystery began.

Who are YOU?

Five years later, everything was different.

Daddy was dead.

For months after he died, I still ran to the window whenever I heard what sounded like his Chevy.

Maybe it was Daddy.

Maybe his white 1951 Chevrolet would magically appear.

Maybe he would come to pick me up.

He never did again.

He never, ever did again.

Eventually I turned away from the window and walked by myself to St. James's.

I loved that church.

The organ.

The choir.

The stained glass.

The old oak pews.

And the widows.

The widows always seemed glad to see me.

There was one man there I remember especially.

Mr. Fletcher, our minister

He knew my daddy had died.

One time he visited our home.

Ma made tea and cookies and cake.

He asked Mom and Ma how they were doing.

Then he looked at me and asked me how I was doing.

“I’m fine, Mr. Fletcher.”

I wanted to please him.

He called me over to him and took me onto his knee.

I can still remember how much he cared.

He simply held me.

Weeks came and weeks went.

Months came and months went.

Then after church one Sunday I started home along Massachusetts Avenue.

Cars and trucks went by.

The trolley clattered along its tracks.

Shop windows were abandoned and soaped up.

People hurried about their business.

And somewhere along the way there was an unkempt hedge.

Scrawny.

Neglected.

The sort of thing nobody would notice.

Except that day I noticed it.

Several leaves on the haphazard hedge hung out beyond a chain-link fence.

I grabbed one.

A solitary leaf.

Then I pressed my thumbnail into it.

The nail broke through the surface.

Green chlorophyll discolored my thumbnail.

Its lifeblood.

Then I stopped.

I killed the leaf.

It was in that moment that Something in my heart spoke to me.

There were no voices, just a sense.

And yet it was articulate and clear.

The Sense said,

Don't you know there is a special place in MY HEART for your dad?

I stood there.

The traffic continued.

The trolley continued.

Somerville continued.

But something had happened.

I ran home.

Ma was there.

This was urgent.

"Ma, is there a God?"

"Of course there is."

"Ma, is there a Heaven?"

"Of course there is."

"Ma, is my daddy there?”

Here is where Ma hesitated. 

Often she said that it was the Irish who had ruined Boston.

I hadn’t connected the dots then but she must have wondered.

I hadn’t connected the dots then, but I wonder now what passed through her mind. The prospect of spending eternity with that Irishman after the divorce may have given her pause.

Oh the synapses that must have fired in her mind then.

But she hesitated but for only a moment.

Then she knelt down and pulled me toward her.

She placed my head into the nape of her neck.

And it is as though I can still smell her hair to this day.

And then she said,

"Of course he is."

Oh how my heart leapt for joy then.

I hugged her close and loved her and she loved me.

We had lunch and then I went out to play.

Later that night, the Silence was still there.

But now there was a Presence together with it.

I remember smiling to the Presence.

And I remember calling out to the stars above and the world below,

“Don’t you know there’s a special place in MY HEART for your dad?”

That settles it.

Ma said so.

There is a God.

There is a Heaven.

And my daddy’s there.

I know much more theology now than I did then.

Or at least I have read many more books.

But I still return to that shabby hedge beside Massachusetts Avenue.

A little boy.

A solitary leaf.

A dead father.

And Silence.

And then YOU spoke to me somewhere in my heart.

Or at least I think that was YOU.

“There’s a special place in MY HEART for your dad.”

The message was crystal clear and has stayed with me a lifetime.

For me Nothing became a Silence.

The Silence became a Presence.

The Presence became a Companion.

And the Companion I spoke to in the Night Season in wonder was YOU.

At least I thought so at the time.

My sadness turned to excitement and joy. 

Because Ma held me when I was afraid of a Bumble Bee.

And then when I asked her if my Daddy was safe with YOU,

She held me once again and spoke those words,

Words I can hear to this day,

“Of course he is.”

was YOU.

At least I thought so at the time.

My sadness turned to excitement and joy. 

Because Ma held me when I was afraid of a bumble bee.

And then when I asked her if my daddy was safe with YOU,

she held me once again and spoke those words,

words I can hear to this day:

“Of course he is.”