Saturday, February 5, 2011

From Abstract to Concrete

I called my mother at around 9:30 last night.
“Mom,” I said. “I’d like to write about Daddy.”
We talked for a half hour or so; I mostly listened.
“Do you know what your father said to me on our first date?” she snickers.
“Didn’t he say...”
“He said, ‘What does the mass mean to you?’”
Not knowing my father, you might think he was some sort of Jesus freak or something, but really, my father was a devout Catholic, a late-in-the-game convert who had a genuine faith in God that I still can’t fathom. 
To put it in context, my father grew up poor in an old Chicago neighborhood with his mother, brother, and older sister. For some reason, he was the only one of his siblings not to be baptized. Somehow, though, in the service he befriended a fellow draftee who would introduce him to the faith and become his godfather.
“Gosh, I can’t for the life of me remember his name,” my mother says a half hour into our chat. “He was such a good friend of Daddy’s.”
Though baptized in the service, my dad did not become a practicing catholic until he met a priest at St. Rose of Lima Church where he'd had a job designing bulletin covers that went out to several other Chicago parishes. It was in the kitchen of that church’s rectory that my father would meet Mary Lou Davis, his future wife, who just happened to be both the organist and music teacher at St. Rose. 
“It was because of your father that I became who I was,” my mother says. “His faith kept me involved in the church.”
A few minutes after I hang up the phone, my sister calls me to give me the name my mother couldn’t recall. 
“We knew it started with a G and had a ‘ski’ at the end,” she says all aquiver. “Mom thought you’d want to know.”
I did want to know the name, but here’s what I really want to know: I want to know how people back in the day had a faith like my father’s. I want to understand the kind of faith, or, in the very least, the connection to a church that drove my father’s sister and her husband to go to St. Rose’s when it was being demolished and to take home the concrete slab that bore the name of their church. My mother told me that Aunt Betty still has that concrete slab, and I don’t know why but I was surprised by it--the way a person can be so moved by the demolition of a church as to seek a remembrance of it. 
My father designed the stained glass windows of St. Richard’s Catholic Church, windows that some parishioners disdained for their abstract representations, the windows my evil first-grade teacher disliked so much they made her "look the other way.”
Hmmm. Where’s a concrete slab when you need one?


Photos: Ralph V. Smith stained glass windows at St. Richard's Church, Chicago, Il.

9 comments:

  1. ohhhh! you cracked me up so bad!!!
    that was so funny and so YOU
    When I checked your blog and saw that you had posted something I said YIPPEE
    then I saw the heading...YIPPEE again
    write what we know...write to the edge
    and if you don't know where that edge is...write 'till you do.
    I know that kind of faith
    I understand that...
    it is an emotional connection to God
    that was found in those four walls
    God is love...his name means love
    and they found that there..and they found God there.....
    it is the human in us divine creations
    Learn more about them and you will carry more of them with you always...
    I have missed you!

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  2. Hi, Suz!! I know, I know...I'm such a smart aleck (perhaps another term comes to mind!)

    But it is so nice to hear from you...I've missed you, too :-)

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  3. Sniff, glad you posted something new. I look forward to it. I think of you and your family, specifically your father, whenever I attend mass during my few-and-far-between trips home. I'm so glad he's immortalized forever with his beautiful art. Love you Sniff. M

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  4. What a nice thing to say about my dad's work--I miss our talks, Mags...call me soon!
    Love,
    Chrissy

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  5. Oh, the windows are absolutely beautiful. Your father was a special gifted person.

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  6. Thank you for the kind words, April...they mean so very much to me.

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  7. So.........................
    I see you have updated your profile
    a good sign I think!
    University of Chicago...so you're brilliant
    but I knew that
    I see my friend April has visited you
    Christina...this is one fabulous woman
    a wonderful artist
    Now, I also see that you have another blog..sort of
    I was going to be miffed if you posted and I missed them....I have missed you
    Do you know my littel Finn is going to French school?
    That they are going to build a campus at the sight of the old Ravenswood hospital...
    How 'bout we do lunch this summer?
    I'll buy

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  8. Oh, Suz! You still visit me when I've neglected ALL of my blogger friends--you are truly a gem because you haven't given up on me :-)

    And Yes! I would LOVE to do lunch this summer! So many great places around Chicago to pick from...

    Oh, and how exciting that Finn will be going to French school..so much to catch up on...

    I'm SO glad you stopped by...as always ;-)

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  9. I will never give up on you
    youz good woman
    good writer too

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