Roses for Others

 

I'm closer to death than to birth now, and it's safe to say that none of the prayers I offered God most fervently were answered.

 

That Mike not die of cancer. That the beatings and abuse in my childhood would stop. That I would have what normal people have: health, a job, some kind of family or home.

 

No, no, no, no, no.

 

There's one "no" that really rankles.

 

My getting a PhD was a Sisyphean task. Harassed by a powerful black, female professor who had the entire university behind her in public -- but in private that very university used her abuse of me to sabotage her.

 

I came out of all that chronically ill and crippled for life.

 

But I soldiered on, for people like my parents, for Bohunks. I wanted to write and publish a book that would make a difference for us.

 

Living on nothing. Eating food I acquired in ways you don't want to hear about, fighting back the constant nausea from my crushed inner ear.

 

I wrote the book and publishers  immediately pounced on it. Ohio University Press sent me a signed contract. "Groundbreaking!" "Wonderful!"

 

And, after a year of stringing me along, they reneged, and pulled out. Fear. The book was "controversial."

 

That happened again and again, with one publisher after another. Fordham, U of Wisconsin, CEU, etc

 

Meanwhile, having paid all my student loan debt back immediately after graduating, I had *nothing.* I ate ... again ... you don't want to know.

 

I was totally alone.

 

I couldn't find a job

 

Life was lived under a constant gray haze of isolation and despair.

 

I was back in Paterson, applying for hundreds of jobs and not getting so much as an interview. I didn't realize it at the time, but this was happening to many other new PhDs. there were just too many of us. I got rejection letters saying, "We had 600 candidates for this job ... "

 

I was older, sicker, with a "controversial" dissertation. and white. And that all factored against me.

 

The sky was always gray. The sun never shone. No one talked to me. Why should they? No job. I was nobody and nothing to nobody.

 

I had no car. I was always in Paterson. Garbage was always underfoot. Constant noise. Hostile stares. People yelling threats out of car windows. "Ima kill that white bitch!"

 

Steve Jackson, a Polish American poet in Paterson, told me that St Therese the Little Flower aids those at the end of their rope. She sends them roses.

 

I turned to St Therese.

 

I prayed for a rose.

 

No rose.

 

But one day I was walking to Corrado's, and a truck passed. It was from the White Rose grocery chain. On the side of the truck was a picture of a rose, and the phrase, "You deserve the best."

 

I thought, wow, you are such a powerful saint, this is the best you can do? A sign on a truck?

 

It's now years since that horrible time. Some things have improved. I've reconnected with an old friend from high school who has been very charitable, and that kindness has made things possible that weren't possible before.

 

Yeah, people really do need people.

 

I have a car. It's twenty years old, but it is wheels, and those wheels keep me sane.

 

The other day, an envelope arrived in the mail. It was a solicitation for a donation from the Little Flower Society, that helps spread the news of St Therese's life.

 

I remembered that horrible time when, on the advice of a Polish American poet from Paterson, I begged St Therese for a rose, and all I got as a sign on a truck.

 

I thought, "I'm not donating to your cause. To the other Catholic organizations asking me for money, yes. To you? Nothing."

 

I asked someone. I told him the truck story. "Should I donate?" He's Protestant and doesn't like Catholicism and he didn't give much of an answer. So the question was still in my court.

 

And then, I decided, I will donate.

 

I wondered why. And then I realized -- she didn't give a rose to me, but St Therese has given roses to so many others, including that Polish American poet I mentioned. His life isn't easy, either. He called on St Therese, and she answered.

 

Many, many people are followers of St Therese. She wrote a book about her faith and it has inspired millions of people.

 

So that's why I donated to her organization. Once you donate they send you letters throughout the year asking for more money, and I'll probably donate again.

 

Roses for others.