COMMENT ON “THE SCARF”

“The scarf” is a story that, insofar as language can catch reality in its net, seems true.  Here’s what truth I can swear to.  I have a very close friend whose husband, Bill, is perilously ill with cancer.  My husband and I live a block from St. Charles Seminary, whose bells, at 6:50 every morning, peal over our neighborhood.  When I hear them, I frequently pray, and frequently I remember Bill, who lives in Wisconsin, in my prayers.  One winter  as I was stumbling around in our kitchen, setting on the water to boil for coffee, hearing the bells, praying for Bill in that unfocused, bleary early morning way, I recalled that six months before at 6:50, the very same time, it had been full-out daylight.  The birds had been raucous.  Thinking of that lost light, I felt cold, and I imagined that Bill might be feeling cold, too.  For comfort I imagined the summer bells and the winter bells as two ends of a long scarf that, across the miles, united us.