Thank God
he didn’t drop her!
I remember
the good
Republican,
Conservative Preacher
holding Mary Grace
up in the air
with her RICHARD N. SHIT
hand-smocked,
baptismal dress on,
the cost of which
could have fed and housed
fourteen homeless families
for a month.
He was charging the congregation
of Lockheed-Bomb-Building Presbyterians
to love her,
and to guide her,
throughout her lifetime
within THAT community
of Believers.
I CRIED.
I remember her
a few years later,
freely skipping
from table to table
in the Fellowship Hall
at Wednesday Night Supper,
giggling and kissing everybody,
being pulled here,
being kissed there,
being loved by
HUNDREDS
of well-dressed families
who responded seriously
to THAT charge
from The Preacher.
These good people
LOVED LOVED LOVED
them some Mary Grace.
At Nineteen,
after spending her childhood
being loved
by this community
how they loved her,
and by her Mom, Brother, and Sister
loving her how they loved her,
and by me,
and my friends
loving her how we loved her,
moved ALONE
with a suitcase
to a foreign country
where they speak a language
that she did not grow up with.
Watching her,
confidently get on that plane,
on NINE SIXTEEN, 2001,
5 days after NINE ELEVEN, 2001,
ALONE,
was a direct result
of that goddamn preacher
not dropping her
on her big-o-Henry-head
THAT Baptism Day
in that million dollar sanctuary.
She was landing on an island
with no home,
no plan other than
to learn a different language,
and walked off the Ferry
to build a new life.
I CRIED.
I cried,
but I knew
that she was doing
what she needed
to keep her balance
in life.
She pledged to Stay Whole.
Mary Grace left America,
using all the Love
that it had given her,
to be Maria Graciela
in Mexico.
She didn’t know
she was being so courageous,
that little girl
in that hand-smocked-dress
tentatively hanging
from the powerful hands
of THAT good preacher.
She didn’t know
that she was special,
she didn’t know
that she should be scared,
but she did know
that she would be o.k..
Why wouldn’t she?
She knew nothing but Love
in a fucked-up-bomb-building-world,
where every traditional institution
had done the best
that they could do.
In authentic ways,
we succeeded.
In traditional ways,
we failed.
I CRY.
LOVE heals even the most
tragic of circumstances,
and can carry us
to magical places.
Just ask Mary Grace.
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE.
People are fucking dying around here.
