rocket ship

I suppose it is fair to ask, what the infamous Russian Satellite, Sputnik, has to do with the dying mother of a small child in the congregation. Actually, the young child in question was five or six, and the child of our Methodist minister the year Sputnik was fired into space. The year was 1957.
The child’s care became a congregational duty, a loving act of kindness, but as you might imagine fraught with difficulties and stressful for all involved.
I suspect the precocious child felt much like cold left-over green bean casserole at a church supper, an obligation to the middle-age pastor by many, and particularly to Grace, a charming but edgy lady who had an eye for the pastor. I think that Grace, perhaps subconsciously, wished for the pastor’s wife to die, though I am certain she would have been aghast at my suggestion, but much later she admitted there was some validity in this statement and in fact, much much later, she told me that this was true. She is gone now, so it would be uncharitable for me to say so, but the only folks privy to this story are mostly gone, except the boy, now grown, and me. I am grizzled with grey like an old dog, so no one cares what I say anyways.
As the inevitable hand of death spares no one, the pastor’s wife slid into that final retreat from life, lingering in her pain oblivious to all those around her as the congregation prayed.
One might assume the congregation was praying for deliverance, and most were, except perhaps Grace, and in truth, me. More of that later.
Back to Sputnik. We, the young boy, Grace, and myself, the upright divorced deacon, sat quietly in the fourth pew from the altar. I pretended to listen to the pastor’s drawling sermon but was equally interested in Grace’s fine shapely legs. It had been awhile.
Obviously I am not a spring chicken and Grace was a decade younger and a recent widow. Auto accidents happen, that’s all I can say. I had been labelled as jaded by ex-wife. It fits.
As the bald-headed usher passed the offering plate solemnly down our row, the nickel that the child was anxious to tithe, slipped through his fingers and rolled down the aisle. The frantic child ducked under the forward pews, scrambling to retrieve his offering. Grace grabbed him by the scruff of his Easter suit, forcing him back into his seat as he began screaming, that his nickel “wasn’t going to make it to the rocket ship”.
Now if you know one thing about Methodist churches, it is that decorum must be maintained at all costs, hence the term methodism, the hallmark of John and Charles Wesley, the founders. Trust me, the commotion that followed would have had the two pious brothers rolling in their graves.
I swear to you that the full attention of the church was on the screaming child and Grace, loudly spouting out four letter expletives like a drunken sailor as she yanked the young child by the hand and half-dragged the young boy out of the sanctuary.
After the service I retrieved the nickel as I found the sobbing boy hiding in the basement Sunday school room. He was hiding in the dark, I guess you might say this traumatic event was symbolic, and leave it like that - but the boy insisted that we take his nickel to the altar, where he asked me to bless it. I felt humbled, to say the least.
Shortly thereafter the boy’s mother passed. Though the pastor never mentioned this issue, I suspect that Grace’s public spectacle soured both of them on any chance for a relationship. I guess that is where I came in; Grace’s new suitor. It was clear to everyone that Grace had little patience for children, and frankly, neither did I.
I have since become financially well-off and give generously to my church, but the most generous gift ever made to that church was the nickel that young boy gave to the rocket ship to God on that Easter Day.