CURIOSITY

[Every Christmas  since 1993, I’ve written  a story for my  Christmas homily. I do this in memory of a priest I was stationed with - Father John Duffy. He wrote a Christmas story every year  for his niece in Boston. I found out  he did this - when he mentioned at breakfast one December morning -  that he had just finished his Christmas story. I nagged him to see it and he finally let me read it. Great story teller. Horrible typist. So without asking,  I typed it up on my computer and told him any changes would take seconds. We  did that. The following year he asked me to type up his handwritten copy of his latest  Christmas story. It was about a dad trying to get home to his family for Christmas in a snow storm. I did that. While typing that story I looked out the window to see how high the snow was. There was no snow. I realized at that moment the power of story. Then when he died  - December 24, 1993,  I decided to write a Christmas story in memory of Duff. This is Number 26. Here goes. It’s called “Curiosity.” And every Christmas - I’m curious what story will be born in my brain and how it goes. “Curiosity!”]

He woke up that Christmas morning having had a strange dream during the night before Christmas.

“Come to think about it,” he was telling me this years after all this happened, “I hadn’t had a dream in years - at least - a dream  that I remembered.”

Being curious, I listened. In fact, most of the time - people don’t open up their whole life to total strangers in rocking chairs - in nursing homes - but “Wait a minute,” I thought, “sometimes people do - so I better listen. It sounds like this guy -  still has his mind and his wits.”

I didn’t tell him that I was a retired brain surgeon and also a behavioral psychologist.  People had opened up their whole lives to me - that was one of my jobs - but  I really didn’t know this resident on corridor C - between rooms 68 to 98 - in Blue Meadow’s Nursing Home - as he was telling me his life story.

We were both old men - residents - widowers - with aluminum walkers - spending the last few years of our lives here in Blue Meadow.

“Well, I’m curious,” I asked, “tell me about that strange dream you had that night before Christmas years ago?”

He looked both ways - down the corridor and up the corridor - and then he began -  sort of whispering.  I turned my hearing aid up a bit.

He began quite dramatically: “God appeared to me - in my dream - well sort of!”

Silence.

He continued, “Now I wasn’t a big God person nor a small God person.  I was just a BMW car salesman in Atlanta, Georgia. Most years I’d go to church for Christmas and Easter - weddings and funerals - and at other times, sometimes. We didn’t have any kids - sorry to say.

He paused ….

He continued, “My wife was killed in a car crash - not long after we got married - and I was so devastated - that I never got married again. She was the love of my life.”

“Woo,” I said to myself. “I’m rather new to this nursing home. Is this what people talk to each other about in nursing homes: telling each other about their lives?”

I didn’t know this guy yet.

He continued talking, “That Christmas Eve I had the dream. It was around 3 in the morning - when Santa Clause was making his rounds - around the world - and getting his chocolate chip cookies and cold milk. No wonder he was a big boy.  I guess God was also making his rounds -  putting  a letter  in my mail box - and maybe many others - in the different ways God Bethlehems people.

“Relax,” he continued, “I’m not crazy.   God put a letter in my mail box. I heard the shuffle of paper in the metal slot on my front door. It woke me up at 3 in the morning. I went down to the front  door and saw this light brown envelope half way through my mail slot.

“I quickly opened the door. It was cold - but not snowy out there - and I looked up the street and down the street - and didn’t see anyone. No cars were moving.

“I went back inside. I was  in my bathrobe - slippers - and pajamas.

“I sat down in my living room Lazy Boy chair and looked at the letter.

“I opened it up. Sure enough it was signed ‘God’.”

I asked myself, “Well, what do I ask for?

“I thought it was one of those jokes. It said, ‘I have one gift for you this Christmas. But you have to come up with an answer to the gift you want by 3 o’clock this afternoon - that is: Christmas afternoon.”

“Not having a wife …. not having kids …. what do I ask for - whom do I ask?

“Well, obviously  I went  to church that Christmas…. In a way It was like going  for the first time in my life. I prayed to God for an answer to the  question. ‘What should I ask for?’”

“I remembered hearing in church or somewhere - a long time ago - about King Solomon - David’s son - who had the same experience. God had asked him, ‘I have one gift for you. Ask for it and it’s yours.’ And Solomon  asked for the gift of understanding.

“And God gave it to him….

“I wondered, ‘Is that what I really need? Understanding?’

“I kept thinking….

“However,  the word, ‘Curiosity’ kept hitting me - not understanding.

“I said to myself, ‘No way. Nobody asks God for the gift of curiosity.

“But - I couldn’t shake that word out of my brain - and I became very curious. Why curiosity?  Why should that be the gift I ask for?

“So that afternoon - at 2:59 -  I said to God, ‘Curiosity. I want the gift of curiosity.’”

Silence.

Pause.

He continued, “’Wait a minute,’ I asked myself.  ‘I’m curious. It was just a dream. There was no letter in my mail box - in real life -  no letter sitting there in my living room - next to my lazy boy chair.

Silence.

Then came more….

“I still asked God for curiosity - and curiosity changed my life.

“My mom was still living. Funny, she was in a nursing home. I found myself buying a small tape recorder and lots of yellow pads and every Wednesday evening and for a couple of hours every Saturday and Sunday I sat with her and together we wrote her life  - and my dad’s life - and the more we wrote - the more curious we became and it brought my mom such delight that someone was dying to hear her story.

“I became curious about the Civil War and Sherman’s March through the south and everything I could find out about Andersonville Prison Camp in Georgia - and I found out we had a great-great uncle who was a guard there during that horror.

“I became interested in God - God and science - and the power of curiosity and faith.

“I made peace with the Problem of Evil and the Problem of Cancer - and the Problem of people dying suddenly in car accidents - like my wife. I learned that I had to deal with the Problem of Good - why is there so much good in our world? Like split pea soup with tiny chunks of  ham - as well as milk shakes and waffles and volunteers. Oh.  I volunteered to coach Little League baseball and Midget football and I joined the local rescue squad.

“I wondered and became curious about questions like, ‘If we were all blind, how would we discriminate? If we were all deaf, how would we communicate with each other - besides using sign language?  Is there something out there - still to discover?”

“I discovered that curiosity could be a better gift than understanding - because it’s the step before understanding. It’s the step that leads to understanding.

Pause. Silence.

Then this other old man said to this old man, “Wait, I’m talking too much? I’m curious about who you are.  Who are you? What did you do for a living? How did you end up here in Blue Meadow’s nursing home?  Why did they call this place, “Blue Meadows?”

And I said, “I’m curious too, ‘Was that really a dream about God giving you that  letter that Christmas Eve? Or do you think God says to everyone on the night before Christmas: I have one gift I want to give you, but you have to figure out what it is, by 3 o’clock  Christmas afternoon.”