Dreams from My Father - Barack Obama [84]
Sometimes I would stop by Mary’s house just to say hello, drawn perhaps by the loneliness I sensed there, and the easy parallels between my own mother and Mary; and between myself and Mary’s daughters, such sweet and pretty girls whose lives were so much more difficult than mine had ever been, with grandparents who shunned them, black classmates who teased them, all the poison in the air. Not that the family had no support; after Mary’s husband left, the neighbors had shown her and her children solicitude, helping them fix a leaky roof, inviting them to barbecues and birthday parties, commending Mary on all her good works. Still, there were limits to how far the neighbors could accept the family, unspoken boundaries to the friendships that Mary could make with the women—specially the married ones—that she met. Her only real friends were her daughters—and now Will, whose own fall, and idiosyncratic faith, gave them something private to share.
With nothing left to do for the meeting, Mary sat down and watched me scribble some last-minute notes to myself.
“Do you mind if I ask you something, Barack?”
“No, go ahead.”
“Why are you here? Doing this work, I mean.”
“For the glamour.”
“No, I’m serious. You said yourself you don’t need this job. And you’re not very religious, are you?”
“Well …”
“So why do you do it? That’s why Will and I do this, you know. Because it’s part of our faith. But with you, I don’t—”
At that moment, the door opened and Mr. Green walked in. He was an older man in a hunting jacket and a cap whose earflaps hung stiffly against his chin.
“How you doing, Mr. Green.”
“Fine, just fine. Getting chilly, though ….”
Mrs. Turner and Mr. Albert quickly followed, then the rest of the group, all bundled up against the hint of an early winter. They unbuttoned their coats, prepared coffee for themselves, and engaged in the small, unhurried talk that helped warm up the room. Finally Will walked in wearing cut-off jeans and a red T-shirt with “Deacon Will” across the front, and after asking Mrs. Jeffrey to lead us in prayer, he started the meeting. While everyone talked, I took notes to myself, speaking up only when things started to wander. In fact, I thought the meeting had already dragged on too long—a few people had slipped out after an hour—when Will added a new item to the agenda.
“Before we adjourn,” he announced, “I want us to try something out. This here’s a church-based organization, and that means we devote a part of each meeting to reflection on ourselves, our relationships to each other, and our relationship to God. So I want everybody to take out just a minute to think about what brought them here tonight, some thoughts or feelings that you haven’t talked about, and then I want you to share ’em with the group.”
Will let the silence build for several minutes. “Anybody want to share their thoughts?” he repeated.
People looked down at the table uncomfortably.
“Okay,” Will said. “I’ll share something that’s been on my mind for a while. Nothing big—just memories. You know, my folks weren’t rich or nothing. We lived out in Altgeld. But when I think back on my own childhood, I remember some really good times. I remember going to Blackburn Forest with my folks to pick wild berries. I remember making skating carts with my cut buddies out of empty fruit crates and old roller skate wheels and racing around the parking lot. I remember going on field trips at school, and on the holidays meeting all the families in the park, everybody out and nobody scared, and then in the summers sleeping out in the yard together