A New Beginning

It turned out to be a beautiful day after all -- with all the weather forecasting of violent thunderstorms, possible tornadoes and all. The sun rose through a hazy, light overcast. Dew point was about 62, temperature 65 degrees farenheit, made for high humidity, but not too bad, considering the forecast alternatives.

I gave up singing in the choir this morning because I would have to get up halfway through the service and hightail it to the Catholic Charities Branch III, in Minneapolis. I had promised to pick up Juan and Jennifer, who had consented to talk to our Jr. and Sr. High kids about their work at their center, and possibly move some of them to some volunteer work this summer.

We had done everything to assure a heavy participation to this event by calling everyone on the phone prior to today. I had personally gone to church yesterday to set up the basement room in our parish house for at least twenty people, when I heard that John B.’s 7th and 8th graders were going to participate. Everything was all set for Juan and Jennifer. Unfortunately, Rob had to leave unexpectedly early last week to take care of some software problem some customer was having in Dallas, Texas. So everything depended strictly on John T. and myself. I had left word with John T. to be sure and go to the basement room at the parish house instead of the regular room we used on Sunday mornings. Everything was all set.

Around 9:40 a.m., I left home for Catholic Charities Branch III and arrived there about 9:55 a.m. I parked in the back, as we usually do when we come to serve our monthly meal, and waited. My watch showed 10:00 . . . then 10:05. Nobody even remotely looking like Juan or Jennifer showed up.

When my watch indicated 10:15, I backed my car up and drove around the block to see if either Juan or Jennifer had decided to go to a spot which I couldn't see from where I was parked. Nobody in sight. I’m too old to panic, so I stayed cool. It did occur to me that I had to drive back to church where I would have to explain to 20 or so young people, who had been primed for a worthwhile morning with people from the real world, “where the rubber hits the road,” so to speak. What was I going to say to them?

When my watch indicated 10:20 a.m., I decided to leave a note taped to the back door of Branch III, and to drive back to Shoreview at an average speed far exceeding the local freeway speed limit. And on a Sunday yet! I arrived at the parish house about 10:35, about five minutes after our usual starting time, hurried up to the steps of the front door and opened it, expecting the usual pre-class din of male and female voices vying for dominance. The place was as silent as a tomb. I slapped my head to make sure I was there. It smarted a bit. I was awake all right. Where was everybody? This was May 9th, Mother’s Day, 1993. I had just driven to and from Catholic Charities Branch III without our intended speakers, and I was standing inside the parish house door in Shoreview and there was not one of those young people, who should have been here, to be seen or heard. I went downstairs where I had set up 20 chairs yesterday for this meeting, there were three communicant class members with our associate pastor and his wife teaching the class.

I left in a daze. I remembered vaguely the T.V. movie, where the lead character is transposed into a different age and time and all of his surroundings have stayed the same, but all the people he knew had long since died and nobody recognizes him. I was prepared to meet a pastor and church members I had never seen before in my life. No one appeared. Everybody was in the sanctuary for the second service.

I went to the church office expecting to find a message from Juan and Jennifer that they had seen the note at the back door when they arrived there at 10:30, because that was the time they thought I would pick them up, and they were on their way over here. Nobody was in the office and there was no message. I went to my deacon’s mail slot in the hallway of the church, nothing there.

I slowly walked out of the church to my car and drove to our son’s grave at Roselawn Cemetery. There I spent some time trying to figure out what had happened. Nothing made any sense. I was here in Roseville, Minnesota. It was a beautiful Sunday morning. It was Mother’s Day. My speakers for the young people at the church had failed to show up at our previously agreed meeting place. Not a single one of the young people who were expected to be at church had showed up there. Neither did John T. What in the world was happening?

I stayed at John’s grave for quite awhile. I am doing this very frequently, so I notice things more keenly whenever I come here. John’s orchid-tinted New Guinea impatiens had bloomed more profusely in the bright sun since we left it there a few days ago at the 44th anniversary of his birthday. All around there were many new flowers decorating graves of mothers, who were being remembered by their offspring.

All of the sudden it struck me. I didn’t have a mother’s grave to decorate. My mother, together with my father and my 17 year old sister, had been gassed and cremated exactly 50 years ago this year at a far away place called Oswiecim today -- Auschwitz in 1942.

A terrible rage welled up inside me. I felt as if I could tear up the entire world with this horrible feeling of an all-consuming rage that fills me whenever I think of that awful day when the S.S. took them to the concentration camp and extinction.