In the Bleak Midwinter

 

Who Are YOU?

Episode Two: In the Bleak Midwinter

It was in the bleak midwinter of my eighth year to heaven that my daddy died.

Sunday, December 27, 1953.

Two days after Christmas.

I walked into the kitchen.

Uncle Jim from Beverly was there.

That never happened before.

Mom and Ma and Uncle Al and Bobby were there.

They were my family.

Ma was my grandmother.

Uncle Al was Mom’s brother. He lived with us.

So did my brother Bobby.

Something was wrong.

Mom told me.

“Your father is dead.”

I didn’t know what that meant.

Adults said things I didn’t understand.

Someone said my Daddy couldn’t go to heaven because he didn’t go to church.

Someone else said he was with God.

Mom said he deserved what he got.

Bobby was mad at me because I didn’t cry.

I went outside to play.

I did not want to be there anymore.

Joey was my best friend.

We played catch.

I told him my dad died.

He didn’t say much about it either.

I don’t think he understood death any more than I did.

All I knew was that one day Daddy was there.

And the next he wasn’t.

---

My daddy’s name was the same as mine.

Paul Bisson Bresnahan.

But they called me Buddy.

Daddy usually came to visit me in his beautiful white 1951 Chevrolet.

Oh, how he loved that car.

And I did too.

Every Sunday morning I would listen for his car coming up Cottage Avenue.

Whenever I heard a car, I’d run to the front window.

Maybe it was Daddy.

Maybe the white Chevrolet would turn onto Cottage Avenue and stop in front of the house again.

Maybe Daddy would get out.

It never did.

It never ever did.

---

And so on Sunday I would walk to church.

Alone.

The sidewalks seemed alive beneath my feet.

Great maple roots pushed up through the concrete and buckled the old red bricks.

I knew where every hump and hollow was.

Some I’d jump over.

Others I’d balance across as though they had been put there just for me.

Perhaps children notice such things because the sidewalk, at least, is still there.

The trees were still there.

Massachusetts Avenue was still there.

The trolley still clattered along its tracks.

People were still going about their business.

How could they know that Daddy was dead?

And there, waiting for me, stood St. James’s Episcopal Church in Porter Square.

She didn’t simply stand there.

She beckoned.

I went inside.

The deep voice of the pipe organ.

The choir.

Sunlight through stained glass.

Old oak.

Candle wax.

The widows who always seemed glad to see me.

And above the altar, in great gold letters I was old enough to read:

HOLY

HOLY

HOLY

This was a holy place.

I didn’t know what holy meant.

But I knew what HOLY felt like.

Here in the HOLY place I wondered where Daddy was.

Everyone in the church knelt down together.

“Our Father, who art in heaven…”

Father.

I looked up.

High into that great vaulted ceiling.

Our Father, who art in heaven.

Where?

There was no Father.

There was no Daddy.

There was only the ceiling.

And silence.

---

Then came nighttime.

Nighttime was different now.

My mother tucked me into bed and taught me the prayer every child seemed to know.

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake…

Wait.

What did you just say?

If I should die?

Could I die?

Tonight?

Could I go to sleep and simply—

not be here anymore?

Daddy died.

Could I die too in my sleep that night?

Where did people go when they died?

Where was heaven?

What did it mean for the Lord to keep my soul?

And if God was going to keep my soul, what was going to happen to me?

I didn’t want God to keep my soul.

I was afraid of sleep, lest I might die.

I wanted to wake up in the morning.

Some nights the dreams came.

Long, terrifying dreams.

I would awaken suddenly and sit bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat.

Darkness everywhere.

I couldn’t see anything.

“Please, God…”

Silence.

“Please, God, take the nightmares away.”

Nothing.

I listened.

NOTHING.

---

Eventually morning came.

It seemed something of a surprise.

I was still here.

Downstairs I could hear the kettle singing.

Ma was already up.

There would be pipin’ hot water poured into a glass “soz it stayed pipin’.”

Something good might be in the oven.

Blueberry muffins if I was lucky.

The kitchen would be warm.

The windows would be steamed over.

And there was Ma.