On offering presence and cheer

As schedules fill up and commitments press, the ‘most wonderful time of year’ can be daunting after months of singularity, quiet, and distancing.

We attended an early holiday party where many old friends came, including some from high school and childhood towns. Most I hadn’t seen in perhaps 20 years or more. As is true at shindigs like these, people loosen up and disclose what they would have kept under the rug, if not for the free-flowing dream bar. It spurred a guy from my long-ago grade-school class to begin his ‘big reveal.’

He started by talking about how much money he made, and how great his business was doing. Then he wandered into why he didn’t marry his live-in girlfriend of many years, delineating all her faults. Said he was glad he didn’t have kids, after I’d introduced him to my son – who promptly disappeared. Next, he lunged into why he left the Catholic Church. His litany of perceived out-of-touch beliefs stoned me into a stupor. He didn’t come up for air. When I’d wedge in the start of a response, he’d hack it off with more downers. He got louder, laughed at his terrible jokes, and ignored cues. And he drank an ocean. I was shipwrecked. A hot appetizer table beckoned over his shoulder, but I was trapped as he fired more grievances about Catholicism. I watched the luscious scallop- and-bacon bites vanish, then the Asian chicken sticks, then the cheese and fruit mountain. I was on a fast I couldn’t dodge. Another Manhattan could help.

Mulling over possible reasons to excuse myself, it was like I’d missed the last bus and was spending the night at the terminal.

It was tough to get anything through to him.

Then I asked about his parents, and got an epiphany. His dad was unbalanced and abusive, had abandoned them when he was eight, leaving his mom to raise six children alone. Being a religious woman didn’t serve her well in the
end, he said. Once our class clown, he’d never told any of this to us as kids. It stayed shrouded behind all his tomfoolery.

This almost-60-year-old guy whom others saw as fine wanted to matter, to be heard, and be taken seriously. His wounds were raw. And everyone formerly close to him had deserted him.

I listened for hours.

His eyes would water, then he’d laugh nervously, then he’d be dead serious. With so many others at the party I’d wanted to talk with, I realized
I couldn’t just check out. He needed to feel legitimized and worthy of honest attention.

“I still believe in God,” he said. “My mom always prayed for us, and prayed with us.”

I asked him if he still said those prayers.

“I talk to God,” he said. I encouraged him to continue. And said I was there to listen or talk some more, whenever he wanted. Then I smiled genuinely, as he did.

That consuming conversation was indeed well worth it, for us both.

CHRISTINE VALENTINE-OWSIK is Legatus magazine’s editor.