an interaction with a saint of God

I always love the interaction I sometimes have with an elderly gent of my acquaintance;  a saint of God;  one of Nature’s Gentlemen.  He has a self-effacing and gentle personality which manifests itself sometimes in a slight stutter if he gets nervous or stressed.

He’s a man of very modest means, evidenced by his very ordinary house, in a less-than-desirable suburb.    I had occasion to call on him recently to get him to sign a document.  When I knocked on the door, I noticed his Christmas wreath still hung on the screen. Well, it’s only April, after all. It was an ancient thing of faded baubles and plastic holly;  probably purchased in the 60’s.  I picked it’s vintage because we had similar Christmas decorations which were hung in our house year after year, until my sister finally said they had to go.  They were for us, as for him, humble markers of a make-do-and-mend lifestyle. All the same, I chuckled gently to myself, at the thought of him putting it there in the time-honoured fashion of Christmas, and then just forgetting it was there for months afterwards.

I could hear him hurrying to the door at my knock.  He was effusive in his apologies for the mess of the place.  “Don’t worry! It looks fine to me….. for a “Bachelor Pad” I quipped.  He chortled gently at the joke.  He is indeed a bachelor, albeit an elderly one.  His house, though, far from being the sleek and urbane dwelling usually conjured up by such a phrase, is full of his wife’s touch; the pictures of their children on the walls;  the slightly jaded furniture showing evidence of his continued care;  the pot plants on the verandah still watered and nurtured.  It’s the same house all his children grew up in;  the same house in which he cared for his wife, until her death 6 years ago, from cancer.  I remember the date, because it was only a few months before my son's death.  My very first acquaintance with this godly man was a conversation about losing loved ones.  I don’t know if he saw the grief in my face, but I certainly saw it in his. I heard it in his voice too, as he spoke of his wife with love and respect; and of how much he missed her.  He told me “the sicker she got, the more I loved her”. We sat in a silent space then, and cried for our absent loved ones.  
I can always sense the noble traces of the spirit of Jesus on this lovely man. Go in peace, saint of God, go in peace