At night as I fall off to sleep, I sometimes think of what transpired
in the day. Last night I thought of something my mom recently
told me. She has trouble sleeping some nights. She cannot see
well so she does not watch late night television, and the radio
brings her no comfort. She lies in bed and thinks about things.
She avoids as best she can those troubling thoughts that can loom
large in the night. She told me that she thinks of good things,
warm things that make her happy. She said she thinks of days many
years ago when she went to the beach. She liked the beach, she
told me. And thinking about it makes her feel good.
I remember when Mom and Dad took us to the beach when we were
little. I wrote a piece about that once. I remember Mom worrying
as she watched us run in the sand and down to the surf. She knew
the dangers of the ocean, knew we might go too far into the surf.
I thought it good that she has befriended the ocean these days,
if only in her restless nights. A far-away and long-gone beach
she can summon at night and take pleasure in it.
I thought of a place I never was last night as I fell off to
sleep. The name of the place is Kelleytown, and even though there
is still a place called that not far from the monastery here in
Conyers, Georgia, the place I thought of was the Kelleytown that
once was. It was the Kelleytown where Peewee grew up.
I work with Peewee at bonsai. He is a black man who grew up
in Kelleytown, and over time he has told me many things about
those early years of his life. I cannot separate my image of Kelleytown
from the warmth and friendliness of Peewee.
I took a ride with him one day last week to get some special
bags for bonsai soil. The store was in McDonough, which is about
a half-hour ride from the monastery. On the way, we passed a street
called "Kelleytown Road." I recognized the name and asked Peewee
if that was where he grew up. He told me that it was and that
on the way back we could take that road and go there.
We got to the store and purchased the bags. In the store was
a big barrel with odd-looking things in it. I picked one up and
then read the sign on the barrel. It was a pig's ear that I held
in my hand. The ear was dried and brownish in color. PeeWee said
dogs like them. So I bought two for Damian's dogs. The sign on
the barrel said that they cost $1.19 an ear, but the lady at the
register gave them to me for a dollar each. She put them in a
bag. I wondered for a moment as to where the rest of the pig was.
With our plastic bags, pigs' ears and each other, we headed
back to the monastery. As the car neared Kelleytown Road, Peewee
said, "Here it is, Father James. Just go left here."
I turned and drove slowly down Kelleytown Road. Peewee talked
as we rode. He showed me where his home once was. Now there is
a field in the midst of large and beautiful homes. There are many
developments now in that area. I slowed as Peewee told me about
the river where he swam, the school he attended, stores he used
to go to. He pointed out the still-standing Kelleytown Baptist
Church. It is a small building and has been there a long time.
I wondered to myself about the many people who came there to hear
the Word of God preached to them when times were very hard down
here. Peewee's family was among them. Peewee once told me that
his mom raised him to always be forgiving of those who hurt him.
He has memories of the days when blacks were segregated from whites
here and throughout the South. I have never heard a word of bitterness
from him about those times. The words he heard on Sundays from
the pulpit and the words he heard from his mom during the week
hit home.
As I drove he told me about people he knew from the old days.
"Most are gone," he said. "Many moved away. Many others died.
Change, Father James. That's the way things go, always change."
He grew quiet, looking at the big houses as we passed them by.
We are about the same age. Our pasts are very different. We
do not talk about where we have been and what we have seen all
that much. The things of the present absorb us here, and that
is good. We talk about those things -- the weather and music,
the latest news, things going on at the monastery.
Yet at night, I do not think much about the present, lying in
bed waiting for sleep to come. I think of things gone by and wonder
about them. I do not know why I do that -- it is as if by thinking
about them I can experience something about them again. Every
moment of life bears so much with it, and then it is gone and
a new moment comes. It seems to take a while to look at any one
day and marvel at all that it brought. Do we only see what we
have by losing it?
It is a simple left turn to go to Kelleytown. And it is as simple
a turn on my side, looking out the window at night, to summon
things of the past.
The beach is a kind memory for my mom. It warms her, and the
waves sooth her. Then she sleeps without worries about the surf
and her children. She remembers the best of what was.
Things about Kelleytown warm me, too, though I have never really
been to the town that was. Peewee tells me all about it, and when
I listen to him in the day as we ride, I hear the best of what
was. He remembers what was good.
Things change. We move ahead and every now and then take a left
turn to a place that was, and, if we are fortunate, we will be
riding with someone who was once there and can tell us how good
it was. It is a kind of forgiveness, that turn.
Father Behrens is a Trappist monk at the Monastery of the
Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia.
(October 2004)
