ESTA ES SU CASA--OCTOBER 2011
THE MISSION CONTINUES
My annual visit to St. Louis threatened to fall to pieces under the hammer-blow of
young Stephen Willey’s sudden death the day before I arrived in a head-on collision on a country road just a mile from his family’s home in Greenville, IL. The restoration began even before the funeral when his mom and dad Mary Ann and Dave sought out the truck driver, a neighbor with a young family of his own, to calm his feelings of shock and guilt and assure him that they bore him no ill will, they did not blame him: it was an accident, nobody’s fault. Can you imagine that embrace!
At the funeral, I paid tribute to Stephen and his dreams of becoming a fashion designer:
“Stephen is an artist, and you must say ‘is’ because art does not die. It carries the soul of the artist, like angels, into immortality. The greatest artist is God, and look what God gave us in Stephen! As light bursts into rainbows when flowing through a prism, God’s grace filled up with colors as it poured through Stephen’s soul. And the message for us is that we can all be that beautiful. Stephen dressed his imaginary models, but he dressed us as well. His light is flowing through us now.”
The wound of Stephen’s death cut just as deep for Teresa Jorgen, who grew up with Mary Ann in Kirkwood ever since kindergarten. Teresa was very busy with teaching at Parkway Central High School, so we opened up our schedule as wide as possible, for every healing possibility. And I must apologize to you dear friends who I could not visit who accepted so graciously that circumstance, and God grant you very many blessings for your merciful and sustaining offers of sympathy and love.
Honduras was never far from my mind, especially when I thought (and often dreamed) of my own teenager, Chemo (pronounced “Shay-mo”), living in the newly designated “murder capital” of the world (http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/10474486/six-gunned-down-outside-honduras-airport-police/). I called often, but one day Dora, who was taking care of Chemo while I was away, called me: “Good news! Chemo passed his Social Sciences test,” 26 out of 30 points. Music to my ears, since the school year ends in about three weeks. When I got back, Chemo showed me five other tests that he passed, including math! And Chemo’s aunt Alba, so “very pregnant” in my last newsletter, had her due-date revised to late October. I really did want to be back in Las Vegas for the birth, just in case....
And I talked about Honduras. John Shannon, a former colleague from Parkway North now teaching at Vianney High School, where his sons attend, arranged with their wonderful Spanish teacher Barb Fullenkamp to “teach” her classes for the day. She had prepared them well, and they had excellent questions, and the students listened so kindly with open minds and open hearts.
At Parkway South High School they even had tickets printed up for my talk! And the Diversity Club presented me with two enormous banners: HONDURAS IS BEAUTIFUL and WE LOVE YOU, MIGUEL. Well, that last one is a little embarrassing, but I hung them both up on the balcony of my house in Las Vegas with kids from the neighborhood, and I sent the photo back to South. After my talk, one of the teachers had said that a couple of her “tough” kids came back to class with tears in their eyes. I don’t know that I can take any credit for that, either. The pictures do most of the talking. And the photo with the most impact seemed to be the ‘pieta’ of Petrona in the lap of her cousin Mariana.
It is the theme of our life together. In the last stages of diabetes, Petrona was in such pain, probably from her kidneys shutting down, as a friend in St. Louis with medical experience suggested, that she could only sleep cradled in someone’s arms. I told the students that’s what they were doing with Honduras, because they have a heart for the poor. I titled my latest photobook DETALLES, with Petrona and Mariana on the cover. I defined the word on the first page: “Detalles are simple gifts, lovely gestures, kind words, special remembrances, sweet thoughts, signs of loving-kindness. In Honduras, these ‘details’ abound among the poor.”
Another teacher at South High put it this way:
“I believe wholeheartedly that this is what we are called to do-- walk together, listen and share, shelter one another in the storms of life, offer one another hope-- build a relationship. What does it take to face adversity and still be able to smile? What does it cost to have so little and to still be able to offer a hand? The violence and the suffering are sad, but it is not sad to think that life goes on, love lives in Honduras, and that we all have the capacity to be mindful and caring in the ways we reach out to and impact one another. And we all leave a mark-- even when we think we have tread gently or were unnoticed.”
The Cardinals’ run in the playoffs gave me another perfect entry for my talks, since the red souvenir shirts the kids were wearing are made in Honduras, including the Rally Squirrel! A shirt sold at the stadium for $30 covers a week’s wage for the Honduran who made it, and they make thousands of shirts a week. The exorbitant profit goes to...Albert Pujols, I guess. “Cheap labor.” But human beings are not cheap. If you let the poor clothe you, let them inspire your spirit as well. Poverty, though it deprives us of so many material possessions, does not diminish us as persons when it reveals our common humanity.
I actually got to a Cardinals playoff game. Teresa and I had gone over to Greenville to visit with Stephen’s family again. Mary Ann said, “Come for lunch,” stuffed peppers as big as pumpkins from their garden. “This is the first time I’ve cooked since the accident,” said Mary Ann, which made it all extra nourishing. On the way back to St. Louis, I told Teresa, “I can’t be this close and not get closer.” So she dropped me at the stadium, where I had no hopes of getting a ticket, I thought, but one of the scalpers took pity on me, I guess (I looked like a refugee, without a stitch of red on me, in my Mr. Rogers sweater). “You just need a single?” “Yeah, I guess so.” He calls across the street, “Hey, Meat! Guy needs a single. Do something for him!” I got a face-value $72 ticket for $25, seven rows from the field near the Cardinals dugout. It helped a lot that the game had already started. “Man, I just gotta get rid of these tickets!” So, if you need a deal, Meat’s your man. The text of the night came from my sister Barb, glumly watching the game at home: “Wave your rally towel so I can see where you are.”
The “out-reach” in St. Louis was very generous. For example, when we re-scheduled the Open House for October 9, little Sarah Jane Baker, who had been turned down at a couple venues where she just wanted to sell her favorite books to raise money for Honduras, sold them at Teresa’s house. And, by sheer coincidence, little Selma next door was having her third birthday party; pretty soon the parties intermingled. They were buying Sarah Jane’s books, and we were eating Selma’s cake.
And John Newsham rallied the troops with a big laminated sign made from my photos by his wonder-working secretary, urging donations. It’s so tacky to have my hand out, but I guess I can swallow my pride when so many make a sacrifice even in hard times. Even “Santa” got into the act. Paul Hanson, who dressed the part for years at the College Church Christmas Mass for the children, copied Chepito’s drawings for a “project” he has in mind. “It’s just something I want to do,” he said, his eyes glistening with tears. But I depend on every hug, every smile, every prayer, every chocolate-chip cookie, to soldier on in Honduras, once more into the breach.
For sheer firepower, the biggest leg up for Las Vegas may come from Eric Greiten’s “The Mission Continues” (missioncontinues.org) If you have not heard of Eric, I wonder why! A Parkway North grad, he’s everywhere now, especially since publishing his New York Times best-selling autobiography, “The Heart and the Fist” (theheartandthefist.com), which narrates how Eric transformed his competitive, even combative, spirit as a Navy SEAL into a nonviolent conquest of world poverty and injustice. He has gathered around him a group of veterans, many of whom found themselves drifting and even drowning after their service, to continue the “mission,” this time without guns and weapons, an overflowing heart their only ammo.
Eric hooked me up with Mike Pereira, some of whose experiences in Iraq no one would want to repeat. Now Mike wants to “invade” Las Vegas! Plans are for him to come around Christmas time. And get this, he wants to bring another buddy from the war, who was a little busy at the moment. “He’s at another meeting...at the White House...in the West Wing...with Obama.” OK! So I picture us down by the river in December and we get on the satellite phone or something: “Mr. President, they need a new bridge down here in Las Vegas.” How’s that for “stimulus”?
There is no substitute for the personal touch. That’s why even before I went up to the States, I had accepted Seth Felman’s invitation to the B’nai-Mitzvah of his twins Chase and Hannah--in Chicago. I took the MegaBus up there, something I had never even heard of. (Have you seen this thing? It’s amazing!) I had not seen Seth probably since his own Bar-Mitzvah, 35 years ago (the actual dates are lost to history), when I was subbing at Wydown Junior High. His family sort of adopted me, and a week of “baby-sitting” Seth and his sister Amy sealed the deal. Yet we lost contact for many years till Seth tracked me down a few months ago.
A lot of time had passed, including hard times, so we fell into each other’s arms and...the mission continues. His sister Amy, once she learned of my Honduras connection, had some neat ideas of her own. She loved Chepito’s drawings (and so did her daughter Samantha). She suggested hosting a “Luncheon with Chepito” next year in St. Louis with her friends and associates. Chepito won’t be there, but his drawings will! Perfect, especially since artist Fr. Bill McNichols, who has sort of adopted Chepito as a long-distance apprentice, sent me another shipment of materials while I was in St. Louis, to further develop Chepito’s talent. (See www.fatherbill.org for a catalog of Bill’s extraordinary icons from his Taos, New Mexico, studio.)
Steve Jobs grabbed me from the grave, like the ending of “Carrie,” when I could no longer make photobooks on my “old” (2007!) MacBook and I had to buy a new one in St. Louis. Genius though he was, I practically threw a fit for what the “upgrade” cost me. But death got even closer when I tried to give the used computer to Neysi, Elvis and Dora’s daughter now studying at the national university in Tegucigalpa. I thought I would surprise her. “Ah, Miguel, we have a...problem here. I don’t know how to tell you.” But I was already in the taxi. The “problem” was her 65-year-old neighbor Digna Esperanza shot dead, her bloody body lying in the gutter right in front of the house, a swarm of police standing around. Neysi hurried me inside, and closed the door. The danger only starts with the shooting; anyone who talks to the police is the next target. Lily quickly helped with the computer, finding a happy picture of their family to put on the screen-saver.
But life will have its say. Alba just had her baby! She DID wait for my return.... A little girl that they are calling Natalia for her grandmother. Now, Natalia has at least a dozen grandchildren, half of them girls, and no “Natalia” till now. I asked her about it. “Ay, caramba, I’d hate to think why!” Alba can’t explain the delay, either--little Natalia is her fourth girl!
Please let me know if you encounter any special problems with this edition of the newsletter--text, photos, whatever, till I get used to this new-fangled machine.
Again, I thank you for my life in Honduras, only possible because of your love. As far as I am concerned, you are all Natalias!
Bless your heart, Miguel
