It is with a heavy heart that I write this story, but as you will see, there is laughter through the tears and memories to share.
Today was my Aunt Pauline’s funeral. Grief is always a raw emotion when a loved one passes away, and there is an empty space in our lives that can’t be filled no matter the hugs and well-wishes and promises to see each other again real soon. But we were asked by the pastor to tell a funny or heartwarming tale of an experience we had with Pauline, so without further ado, I would like to present to you… the day I got dragged off to jail by my Auntie Pauline.
I was probably only about nineteen years old at the time, and as many of you might remember, I was hot stuff on the guitar. Many a Sunday afternoon or holiday gathering was spent making music in the tiny, brick farmhouse out on Louth Street, with Ken Blowatt on the fiddle, someone brave soul on the spoons, and me on the guitar. Good times, for sure!
My Aunt Pauline, being very involved with the church, decided one day to ask me if I would tag along with her to the local jailhouse to add a rousing rendition of my extensive repertoire for the inmates forced to attend the service she and her pastor would provide.
What could possibly go wrong?
I started to get nervous during the intense search of my personal space at the front desk.
I started to get scared when we were asked to follow a guard through a maze of cage doors and metal firewalls, down very long hallways and into a classroom.
I started to sweat when I realized the classroom was full of blue-uniformed prisoners–all men–who took great interest in studying me with visible hostility while I set up my guitar and microphone.
By the time I launched into my first shaky impression of Simon and Garfunkle’s, The Boxer, I was pretty much petrified.
Interestingly though, when I first walked into that room of incarcerated inmates, you could have cut the tension with a butter knife. These men didn’t want to be there. They had families on the outside who ached to see them again, and every minute spent behind bars took something out of their souls–whether they deserved to be there or not. Their desperation and frustration was palpable.
But something extraordinary happened as soon as I began to play my music.
They say that music soothes the savage beast, and I saw it with my own eyes that day. While I sang my songs and plucked my guitar, something changed in the air. I noticed the men began to sit up straighter in their chairs. Their expressions softened, and the tension eased out of their shoulders. For a brief moment, they seemed to be enjoying themselves.
I can’t be certain, but I think the music and the word of God took them outside that day. It might have only been for a moment or two, but I believe my Aunt Pauline and I represented their ticket to the outside world, where freedom and loved ones waited for them, and they hung on to this lifeline the way a drowning man holds on to a piece of driftwood. Music offered them a breath of fresh air that day, and a promise that God hadn’t forgotten them. That there was a way out.
Of course, nothing did go wrong that day. I played through my fear, and everyone behaved impeccably, but I had a new appreciation for the work my Aunt Pauline did for the church. It couldn’t have been easy for her to visit those angry, resentful inmates time and time again, to be approached relentlessly by frantic men who wanted her to carry their messages out of the prison to loved ones on the outside. She would have to tell them no over and over, that she was forbidden to help them, and it must have broke her heart to see the pain in their eyes. But she was a brave soul and up to the challenge, and her convictions for spreading the word of God to these marginalized citizens was admirable.
The pastor today reminded us that Heaven is a wonderful place, and that my Aunt Pauline was called home, and I know wherever she is right now, she’ll be watching over us, right alongside to Nana and Grampa, making a big pot of soup and a batch of pierogis for when we all come to call.