Prayer for Life

It is very easy in a small school to know what is happening in another student’s life. The high school girls never noticed middle schoolers using the bathroom or minded their words in the same way when younger elementary-age kids came by. We were no longer impressionable minds, so they no longer cared that someone else could hear as they exchanged illicit knowledge and never actually used the bathroom. To this day, I still try to decipher the whats, whos, and wherefores that were always just out of my reach. The amusing and tantalizing conversations that started with, 

“Did you hear that she stole her makeup.... And you know what she responded with? ‘It’s not my shade,’ like we saw her take it,” and always followed with something just as exciting yet never related to the first, “Ugh she’s so fake. I heard she gave half the class a...” The sink begins to run the moment something interesting is stated and I lose the plot. This graphic discourse that young ears could never fully comprehend floods into class. Never understood without asking parents or sharing with peers. Questions starting with, “What is a…” and responses that confuse more than satisfy or worse, responses that question back, “Where did you hear that?” 

The place to discuss these overwhelming questions was homeroom. A place to exchange notes on what was heard. For the middle school students, this time was spent in Miss Schuler’s religion classroom on the second floor by the chapel and library. She would unlock the classroom door for the students before going to open the chapel. It was a very nice room with enough natural light even in the dark of winter to keep half the lights off in the mornings and enough Christian icons to try to keep a person’s mind occupied when it wandered to thoughts of warmer times. The off-putting thing about this room is the baby. This never ceases to scare some students. The plastic diorama of a baby in the womb. No school can call itself Catholic without the odd bobblehead-looking child in a fetal position tucked into its designated nook of pink and red plastic. The high school girls in the bathroom never mentioned babies. They only ever mentioned guys.

Joey was an upperclassman. To girls who were younger and less experienced, he was the pinnacle. What all men should admire in looks. The dark haired Adonis or Achilles consummate in all deeds. From varsity sports to male lead in theatre and being able to drive, he was it. His relationships with girls were the same. The high school girls were jealous when he dated a girl over the summer: a sweet brunette that lasted until the end of September. However, she had other things to think about this school year: the varsity point guard whose name starts with an I or J- the hand dryer went off for that part. So, summer lovin’ comes to an end with a muted argument from the front seat of his car in the school’s back parking lot while girls idle by their cars and pretend not to watch.  

This fleetingly sad affair blew over and was replaced by the beginning of Homecoming week. The theme was Superheroes, and upperclassmen guys had fun ripping open their school-issued button-ups to reveal the Superman logo on their undershirts or humming the Spiderman theme song during study hall while doing calculus homework. Joey had a date, a cheerleader who just broke up with a senior soccer player. The bathroom girls never had anything nice to say about her. Cheesy photos were taken for the dance, the results of which could be seen on instagram and snapchat for the next two weeks, with girls in dresses too gaudy and heels too high to mention and guys in suits with odd colored ties. Odd to take so much care for these things to match to then have them end up on a hotel room floor. 

One snowy morning in December, while we all gathered our books, a tall, dark figure appeared sitting outside the chapel, waiting for it to open. The dark angel in half-fetal position sat on the mosaic floor, back to the lockers, fingers entwined and lips moving in silent prayer, waiting for the chapel doors to unlock. Both of Joey’s previous girlfriends were called to the principal’s office for disciplinary action; the girls in the bathroom were amazed that administration was going to let both of them continue until the end of the school year while also whispering about weight gain and questionable paternity. Joey shows up to the chapel each morning following Thanksgiving into the new year, and middle schoolers passing to go to the library swear they hear him mutter, “Please, don’t be mine.” Miss Schuler calls attention to Joey in homeroom one day, “He is such a devout boy. You all should try to be more like him.”

Spring 2022