Beauty Rising

by Mark W. Sasse

  I wasn’t quite sure I followed. I was the least theoretical person I knew. One has no time to ponder theories when living in the midst of a hurricane. But I nodded out of politeness.

  “Okay. Thank you, Reverend for all of your help with the funeral. You’ve been very nice to us, and I’m sorry that my mother acted the way she did.”

  I stood up and turned toward the door when Reverend Fox cleared his throat.

  “It’s true. Your mother was talking about me. When I was the young assistant pastor here, before she married your father, I had an intimate relationship with her.”

  “What? With who?”

  “With your mother.”

  I gazed back, a frozen sculpture unable to think or move. Reverend Fox added to the silence perhaps not knowing what else to say. He said enough for a simple minded person like me to spend a lifetime thinking about all the ramifications of his revelation.

  “You had a relationship with my mother?”

  “Yes.”

  This certainly explained a lot, and I was sure that it explained things that I could not even comprehend.

  “Martin, please sit down.”

  I sat and remained quiet. If I was a true Kinney, I would be yelling obscenities right about now. I might have even hit him. But sitting was all I could do. I could sit and be quiet like the best of them. I could endure any torrent of abuse, any gale of ill weather, any ridiculous situation by just sitting and remaining quiet.

  “Martin, I’m sorry. I never intentioned to burden you with this knowledge, but after meeting you and seeing the relationship you have with your mother, I – .”

  He stopped and rubbed his eyes.

  “Martin, you’re a good son. I can see the goodness in you. I believe you endured a lot, but all you had on your mind when you came to me the first time was to honor your father, someone who was difficult to love. Someone who was embittered by the past. I was part of that past, your mother’s and father’s past. What I’m about to tell you has long since passed from my consciousness. I’ve paid for my sins, and I know that I’ve been forgiven. So I made it a point of not going around the rest of my life beating myself up for the mistakes I made in my youth. But this funeral brought home another important point; the consequences of one’s actions may never fully be realized. Some people can’t forgive, can’t get over the bitterness and it eats them alive turning them into something much less than they were intended to be. So I feel obligated to you, Martin, to set the record straight. Do you want to know the full story?”

  I nodded. Last Tuesday night I was a bowler. On Wednesday, my dad talked to me like a son, gave me a mission and breathed his last breath. Thursday, I stood up against my mother and arranged the funeral. Saturday, I received a picture of my father singing at church. Sunday, the funeral home gave me my dad’s ashes. And now on Monday, I was being confronted with the foreign past of my parents. The narrow view I held of them completely shattered before my own eyes – my dad and a smiling Vietnamese girl – and my mom and a young assistant pastor. Life was simpler as a bowler. Eating spicy tacos and downing Cherry Coke at the bowling alley with my K-Mart team made me happy. I loved Tuesdays, but it now seemed that I would never face another normal Tuesday the rest of my life. And for some reason, I felt okay with that. I eagerly waited for more revelations from Reverend Fox. It was all so sordid, yet splendid. I felt alive. I felt important.

  “As I said at the funeral, I arrived here in 1960. I was twenty-one years old and just out of seminary. Reverend Coonsley was the senior pastor, and he took me under his wings and set me to work right away doing various different duties for the church and congregation. One of my main tasks was working with the youth. That’s how I got to know your father who was only ten years old when I came. Your dad consistently served in whatever capacity he was asked. He ushered during the Sunday evening service. He volunteered to hoist the flag every Sunday morning. After church, I would often help him re-fold the flag into a perfectly tight little triangle. Over the years, we became close, and I suppose it would be fair to say that he came to look up to me as a big brother. Those were good years. I learned a lot about service and faith and… well, all that doesn’t really matter.”

  He leaned back in his office chair.

  “Now, of course you know that your mother is two years older than your dad. Your dad met her in town one day. He was seventeen. She attended the local business school. She planned on taking a two year course in office related work. Your dad worked weekends over at Stevenson’s Feed Supply – that place is long gone. Your mom took up an internship in the office there a few hours a week to practice what she had been learning at school. Did your parents ever talk to you about how they met?”

  “No. Never. Not one single word,” I said marveling at the tale he weaved.

  “So they started dating and were together for about a year when your dad finally decided to join the army and go to Vietnam and fight. I admired your dad a great deal for how he got your mom involved in the church. Now as far as I know, your mom didn’t come from a church going background. That didn’t deter your father. Actually, he insisted that she come to church with him and his mom, and she did so very faithfully. She loved kids and started helping with the youth. She was great. She taught them songs that she had only recently learned herself. She quizzed them over their memory verses during Sunday school. So they were both very involved in church and with each other. This was right around the time of the Tet offensive in Vietnam. The war created a huge amount of division in the country. Did you ever learn about the Tet offensive?”

  I wanted to say ‘yes’, but I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “No.”

  “Tet is what the Vietnamese call their New Year. On the eve of Vietnam’s largest celebration, the Viet Cong launched coordinated attacks against more than forty different targets all throughout South Vietnam. The coverage that came through on TV made everything look chaotic. Our government had been continually telling us that our soldiers were winning the war. They had daily casualty counts that told us how many VC had died the previous day. But then suddenly, the VC pulled off these coordinated attacks – even in the capital of Saigon where we supposedly had everything under control. After this, the public’s attitude soured bitterly over Vietnam. It looked like a quagmire with no end in sight. People were just tired of it and became unsure of why we were even fighting. The summer of 1968 was horrible. The war protests, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the race riots, the assassination of Robert Kennedy – the whole country was angry, upset, and unsettled. This really troubled your dad as it did all of us. He graduated from high school in June that year, and he resolved to join the army. He thought the war protesters were unpatriotic, and he felt the ultimate way of showing his support for his country was to join the armed forces – like your grandfather.”

  “I know my grandfather fought in WWII, but other than that I don’t really know anything about him.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you there,” said Reverend Fox. “However, I do think your dad felt compelled to follow in his father’s footsteps. Your mother tried to talk him out of it; she was very distraught about his decision. She came to me and asked if I would step in and try to get him to change his mind. But there was nothing I could have said. So he left for basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana around September of 1968. Nothing would ever be the same after that date.”

  Reverend Fox looked tired. He stared off into space for a moment, and then reconnected with me.

  “Martin, can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thank you,” I replied, just wanting to get back to the story.

  Reverend Fox walked over to the coffee maker in the corner, poured himself a cup, then continued to divulge the past I never knew.

  “Over the next several months, your mom kept abreast of your dad’s whereabouts and doings as much as possible. When he shipped to Vietnam in early January of ’69, your mom came to
see me. She told me all about the last conversation she had with him, and then she broke down crying. I tried my best to comfort her. Over the first six months of 1969, your mom and I became good friends. I acted as her confidant about her feelings over your dad and everything she felt concerning his deployment. And for me, your mom was a great help at church. She devoted herself to the youth group, coming every Friday night, playing games with the kids and teaching Bible stories. I greatly admired her, and frankly, I grew fond of her. She was an attractive young woman – simply pretty and very pleasant to talk with.”

  What tall-tales he seemed to be creating! If he hadn’t been a man of the cloth, I might have called him a liar. His words added depth and clarity to my being. I no longer felt like a one dimensional person continually on the receiving end of taunts and jabs and abuse. In a wonderfully strange way, I somehow knew that the web my parents had weaved over me was not real because the parents I knew were not real. They were merely just some beaten down version of who they used to be. I began to realize that Reverend Fox’s story would not hurt me, no matter which direction it sprinted. I had, perhaps, already tasted the worst of my life.

  “By the time the summer of 1969 rolled around, your mom stopped hearing from your dad. It was very upsetting for her, and we talked frequently about him. I told her not to give up on him, that war was sure to take a toll on him, and that we needed to keep praying for him. Your grandmother Maggie would pray for Martin every Wednesday evening at prayer meeting. She was such a faithful saint. She, too, took a good liking to your mom, and your mom and I would often spend Friday nights at Maggie’s house eating dinner, talking, and wishing Martin safety.”

  The Reverend seemed taken in by himself. He gazed off for a moment.

  “It was, I believe, mid-June. Your mom and I were in charge of a mini-youth retreat at one of the campsites up north near Tionesta along the Allegheny River. We had with us about 10 kids aged from twelve to sixteen. We all drove up together in the church van and set-up our tents in a campsite which jutted right out into the river, a beautiful little setting. Friday night and Saturday we did all kinds of activities with the kids – canoeing, tug-a-war, water fights, fishing. Late Saturday night, oh, it must have been after midnight, all the kids were sleeping. I was sitting on a mat overlooking the river; the weather was brisk; lightening bugs lit up the night canvas like Christmas lights and the crickets and the frogs were out in full force. I heard someone coming. It was your mom. She sat down silently beside me for a while. We chatted nonchalantly about the beauty of the sights and sounds. She then brought up Martin, and said something about her being afraid for him. It was quite dark, and I had trouble seeing the expression on her face clearly. I reached out to give her a little pat of encouragement on her back, and I missed her back and touched her face instead. That single touch on that one night….well….it was one of those touches that get your heart racing. She curled her face in towards my hand, and – Well, remember I was nearly twenty-nine at the time. It had been a long time since I had a girlfriend. I truly was focused on my work at the church. But I certainly was not immune to the magical charms of nature. I then reached and pulled her close to me, and I hugged her with my right arm. She scooted over next to me and put her head in close to mine. My, I remember it like it was yesterday. I turned to Jane and said, ‘Jane, I have a tremendous desire to kiss you. May I?’ ‘Yes’, she replied. And we started kissing. Now you might think that since I was a pastor that I would have had better sense than to be starting something like this during a youth outing. I’m no more immune to mistakes than anyone, and so I pressed my luck, and we became more physical. Before you know it, I had led your Mom back into my tent, and we were intimate with each other.”

  He stopped. His heart seemed to race, and his eyes glazed over in some sort of nostalgic trance.

  “She went back to her tent before morning, and the next day we could barely look at each other. I became obsessed with her. She flooded my thoughts every moment of the day. The next week, I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I couldn’t look Reverend Coonsley in the eye, I couldn’t prepare my Sunday School lessons, and I couldn’t pray. She consumed me. I thought for sure I was in love. I finally called her on Friday evening and said I wanted to see her, and we met at the Hot Dog Shop over in Butler. I told her I was sorry for what happened, and that it was wrong for me to not be able to control myself. She didn’t say anything, and then I told her that I loved her. I couldn’t help loving her. I didn’t want to take advantage of her or complicate things with Martin. If she didn’t want to see me anymore, I would understand. She then stopped me and said that she didn’t want to stop seeing me. I had the biggest lump in my throat. And that was the start of the two most selfish months in my whole life.”

  I must have had a strange look on my face because Reverend Fox stopped and asked, “Martin, do you want me to continue this?”

  “I do,” I said forcefully.

  “Well, for the better part of the summer of 1969, your mother and I saw each other on a regular basis. They were truly the most selfish moments of my life because I said to myself constantly, ‘I know I’m not supposed to be doing this. I know it is wrong of me to have an intimate relationship with her. I know that it will cost me everything that I’ve worked for and everything that I have learned about God. But I don’t care. I want her more than anything else.’ Martin, I basically said, ‘Damn the consequences, I’m doing what I want to do.’ By August, everything in my life was unraveling. I couldn’t keep up with my work at the church. The youth activities had slacked off to nothing at all. I avoided your grandmother like the plague. I found myself lying to Reverend Coonsley about the silliest things just to cover up any inkling about our relationship. And I completely blotted out your father’s memory from my life as I think your mom tried to do as well. Finally, by mid-August, I was such a wreck that one evening I went into Reverend Coonsley’ study and confessed everything. I wept on the floor waiting for hell-fire and brimstone; waiting for God’s damnation to shake every bone in my body. But the most amazing thing happened; Reverend Coonsley got down on his knees, pulled me to himself, hugged me and prayed something so simple yet so powerful that I will never forget it. He said, ‘Lord God, show brother Daniel how much You love him. Show him how much You love him.’”

  Reverend Fox had tears streaming down his face.

  “That night changed me forever. The power of that prayer, the power of love, the power of forgiveness overwhelmed me. I was no longer the same. He told me to go home and read the Prodigal Son and then come back in the morning, so we could talk about the next step. I went home and read the Prodigal Son about five times. No matter how I tried to think about it, I could do nothing except receive God’s forgiveness. Every time I read the story, the father welcomed home the wayward son with open arms. I finally began to understand God’s love. The next morning, I met with Reverend Coonsley and we talked through the entire story. I knew for myself, for your mother, for your father, and for your grandmother that our relationship was wrong and that I needed to break it off. Later that day, I brought Jane back to Reverend Coonsley, and we went through everything. We all agreed that the relationship would end, and I told them that I would leave the church. But in the meantime, the church elders had met to discuss discipline. They recommended that I be put on a two year probation period and had direct supervision into my relationships and interactions with people. I grew tremendously in my faith over those next two years, and I learned that I couldn’t let my mistakes keep me from doing what God had purposed for my life. We all make mistakes. Some bigger than others, but we still must move on.”

  “How did my Mom deal with the break-up?”

  “Not so well. She stopped going to church, and I didn’t see her at all for a number of months. Once I ran into her over at Rexall Drugs, but it was one of those awkward-don’t say anything kind of moments. I didn’t really understand what I did to her until more than a year later when your dad returned
from Vietnam. One day I heard that Martin had just returned home. I really wanted to go see him, but of course part of me was very reluctant. But I had to, so I went over to your house there on Home Avenue and Martin was on the front porch. He looked completely changed. He had his tattoos on his arms, he was smoking a cigarette, and his eyes just floated around like he wasn’t completely coherent. We chatted briefly about different things, and I remember before I left that I told him I hoped to see him in church; he just smiled and went into the house. About four days later, it happened. I was at home in my little apartment above the garage of the parsonage. I heard a car pull up out front and a car door slam. Then I heard the heavy pounding of footsteps up the wooden staircase, and a loud thud of a knock on my door. I opened it up and there was your dad. He was very drunk, and he had hate written all over him. He immediately started yelling at me about how I had slept with his girl, and he threatened me. Finally, he punched me in the face, and I fell backwards onto the floor. He lunged at me and pinned me down while beating me with both fists. I finally broke away from him, but he, in his drunken rage, relentlessly went after me. He turned over my coffee table, and threw two lamps onto the floor, the whole time yelling curses and threats at the top of his lungs. I truly was frightened. The whole neighborhood lit up. The Perkins were standing on their front porch across the street. Reverend Coonsley showed up, and when he couldn’t get your dad to settle down, finally yelled to the Perkins to call the police. Your dad kept up his tantrum for another five minutes and then finally went back down the stairs and got into his car. Just as he backed out, the squad car pulled up and your dad had another incident, this time with the police. They arrested him for disorderly conduct and let him sleep it off in jail overnight. Of course, I never pressed charges, but they warned Martin to stay away from me. Your dad never came back to church. Maggie was right. The war changed him tremendously, and of course my actions toward his girl just reinforced his doubts about life, faith, and God. Your grandmother Maggie stopped going to our church after that as well. She started attending one over on Main Street in Butler. I believe she did it out of respect for her son, who struggled to come to grips with what I had done. Your dad never did start going to church again anywhere. About two months after that, I saw in the Butler Eagle that your mom and dad had eloped. I never talked with them again –– ever. When I spoke to your mother at the funeral, it was the first time in nearly thirty years. I would run into Maggie from time to time and we would chat about how they were doing. She always seemed very concerned for them. Maggie passed away in ’73 when you were only…”