THE GATEKEEPER
Francis Percy
It was the beginning
After the evening service had ended she sat back down in the pew as the others near to her were walking away, now weak and beginning to tremble from the swelling grief that she could no longer contain caused by the stumble she had known the night before when the music and the smoke and the drinks were too much to keep her out of the bed that was there in the room above the room of the first society party she would attend with almost everyone new to her except the one she had known from elementary school until now, whose hand she had first held, with whom she had shared the first kiss, in whose car she had first explored feelings of sensual pleasure yet still until now had honored her dream of waiting until she was married. Now in the quietening solitude of the sanctuary the sorrow caused by not being in a disciplined state to wait until became more than she could contain. She began to shake and then to sob without restraint.
It was there in that way that he saw her sitting here, alone in uncontrollable grief, openly pained and distressed. He walked slowly, quietly to her wondering if there was anything he could do. There was nothing to be done. She could not be consoled. He would never ask her why. So he sat in silence beside her as though to help her cry. He knew her, had seen her before, had watched her, and he remembered how it had felt. She had probably never noticed him before.
His kind, gentle presence softened her grief. After a while the sorrow having been given a voice and tears, it began to retreat back into the darkest corner of her soul where it would remain until the end. She asked if she could give him a ride back to the campus. As she drove along in the Catalina to the university he searched for words to say, a way to bring her to preservative, a way to help her to continue. He spoke of the need for fulfillment and how everyone sometimes does things they do not want to do; how everyone sometimes does not do a thing they want to do. Then they were there, in the parking lot of his dormitory. He reached across and took her hand and said a prayer. Their lives would never be the same after that.
About him
He was always popular, always had been kind and sensitive. His older sister was a talented academic and basketball player, and he was mostly at first known as her brother. Yet after her graduation he had become an individual. He was not ever great at anything and yet he was really good at many things. His curiosity with mystery and morality caused him to know that he would need to find some mandate to follow, some example to hold before him when situations would come in which he would have to make a decision about how he would continue. He wanted more than anything to be a good human. He took for his model the life and teaching of the prophet of Nazareth to be his guide. And so in the religious setting defined by his parents the man from Galilee became for him his hero.
In the meager yet comfortable family life provided by his parents who both were school teachers he had opportunity to reflect and fantasize. The patterns of life he saw around him were divorced from the pattern of life he heard about while in the rural segregated church he often attended. And so it was that in this context he constructed a source, a collection of guidelines that he would use to examiner every choice possible for him in the future. The character of the prophet which was defined by the religious community wherein he was immersed became his reference. It would dictate the pattern of living he would pursue.
From the most insignificant to the highest consequence, each decision was measured by a carefully calculated standard. In all of his activities and speculations the same intention motivated him. He would always guard against anything that would risk his health both physically and emotionally and spiritually. And although he would not hesitate to know and associate with persons whose manner of self-expression differed from his preference, he would continue in conforming to his proscribed arrangement. He was admired, respected, purposeful, consistent. Everyone who knew him knew what to expect from him.
About her
The red brick two-story schoolhouse she attended just down the street from the attractive white frame house where she lived had been made familiar to her by the activities of her older sister. She and her younger sister would often go there to play and to pretend. They would also eventually graduate from this high school. She would leave behind her a testimony of expressive engagement and noteworthy achievement.
She was quiet and attentive, extremely capable and with diverse capacities. Her potential exceeded that of her classmates, even that of most other students in the school. She excelled in every challenge given to her. Whether in the classroom or on the playground she drew attention and admiration. From academics to music she displayed enormous talent, having the top scores and playing and singing with precision. She was not just good; she was great at everything she had an interest in pursuing.
With her family she regularly attended the church in the small city where her mother taught Sunday bible classes and her father served with respect, being well known as the expert landsman that befitted his vocation. As she grew in years and maturity and experience she searched for a guide for living that would satisfy her inner longing to be faithful and true while managing the emerging sensations, a measure that would become for her a gauge for knowing what was good and right in attitude and thought and behavior. From fantasy and impressions around her she constructed a picture of what she wanted her life to be about and how she wanted to relate and express herself to others. Her childhood dreams became refined and distinctive, and served as a blueprint for how she would prepare herself to experience the future.
About them
She had found a friend; he had found the embodiment of an anticipated vision of companionship. That it was not a reasonable association did not serve to dissuade his obsession. He was good; she was great. It was that simple.
As the days in the university passed the two of them were brought together is settings composed by their mutual interests. At programs sponsored by the YMCA and in campus religious settings they would visit casually, talking of conditions impacting their lives, of challenges, of plans. At the church where they were before he would usually be in the choir and she would sometimes be sitting in the sanctuary with the one she was pre-engaged to be with. Here he would always look for her and when he saw her he would gaze at her craving some recognition, a smile, a connection with her eyes, and she would usually acknowledge. And that was for a long time the extent of their friendly expression.
Then toward the end of their academic training their friendship changed. She gave him a book and inside the book was a note of gratitude and bewilderment. He read and re-read the hand-written note that he still holds and cherishes.
Eventually, after much time had passed he would find a way to respond, a note of his own writing to her, to answer according to the way their lives had been prepared and served.
He asked her to go with him to a movie and she accepted. And while there he reached across and took her hand, again. Afterward they were together like this many times. Then one night while sitting together in his car beside a dark deserted roadway came the impossible confession. She said I love you. What prompted this confession is still unknown. It was not entirely unexpected for there was a depth of caring between them. He told her he wanted her to be his wife. He believed this was a promise for their future together. Yet history would not provide a way for them to live into their deeply held emotional attachment.
After the academic courses were completed she graduated at the top of her class; he was third from the bottom. He was set to go to the war and she was deliberating about her vocational opportunities. Then the letter arrived. He kept it unopened for several days until he was away on the airplane to Hawaii where we would serve as a youth counselor during the summer. As he read the letter he knew in his soul the torment she had known while there in the pew at the church when he first had sat beside her. In the letter she told him she was engaged to marry her high school sweetheart.
He contemplated how he would respond. He knew how she had so often struggled before with decisions that she had to made, evaluating each of the many different directions in which she could have chosen to go. Finally he said nothing deciding to honor her choice. And yet he knew inside that it did not feel right, that there was more in her deciding than he could understand. He came to believe that she was doing this not for herself but for him. She knew what he expected, what he had waited for, and she knew she could not be this for him. And so rather than deceive him she closed the gate to him so that he would need to, he would be required to continue in another way, so to find what it was that he had waited for.
This is the greatest love of all, that she would give up on her life for the life she wanted for her friend.
No one can know if it was right or wrong, if this was the way they should have been. Yet it is the way they were and the way they are and the way they always will be.
It is the ending
Honor Freedom of Conscience 