The Healing Journey

February 9, 2024

“Pretending to be happy when you’re alone is an example of how strong you are as a person….We are all so much together but we are all dying of loneliness.”
– Albert Schweitzer

Ann and her husband Cletus always sat in the first pew at church. They wanted to be in a front-row seat, right at the center of the action, during the Consecration. Plus, they could hear better when the priest gave his homily. Everyone seemed to know that was their pew and respected their territory. Strange, she often thought, how parishioners always felt more comfortable sitting in the same place every week. She was old enough to remember when pews had the names of people who donated them with a small marker indicating this was their private space.

Then, there were those notorious parishioners who seemed to fight for the last pew so they could sneak out of church unnoticed before the final blessing. But Ann and Cletus had no problem being in the front and even stayed after Mass for a few minutes to say some private prayers.

And then Cletus died, and all the familiar things they did together also seemed to die — all their common routines like morning coffee and scones in the sunroom, dividing up the sections of the newspaper. Now, those wonderful routines were gone and she wanted to forget them.

Familiar habits just weren’t the same when only one person was doing them. So without him, she couldn’t sit in the first pew anymore. She would have preferred the last pew, but that was already taken. Plus she would have stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, sitting there alone. In the end, she found herself a pew on the opposite side of the church, somewhere in the middle. Even as her grief subsided, she knew those things they’d done together never would be the same alone. Another couple took the first pew, and she was happy for them.

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