Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: FAITHFULNESS (10/07/21)
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TITLE: Old Jack | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
10/13/21 -
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The doors swished open as Nicholas and I stepped into the domain of the motion sensor. Nicholas had been through more foster care homes than I could count. He fit easily under my armpit but he walked taller. We paraded through the entrance, navigated the necessary protocols and came across Old Jack. He’d been around forever, hunched over his walker, shuffling, smiling at everyone.
“Who’s that old man?” Nicholas asked. “Why’s he smiling?”
I stood straighter and saluted. “That, my son, is the man I hope to be someday. The blue jacket he’s wearing is lined with badges from his years in the war. You can tell he was once twice the size he is now. When he was seventeen, he joined the air force and by nineteen he was a tail gunner shooting down the enemy over Europe. He stayed at his post even when his plane got shot up.”
“Was he that guy who went around to all the classes telling his war stories, quoting in Flanders Fields the Poppies Grow? He doesn’t look so tough. Why does he just keep staring ahead like that?”
I stood behind Nicholas and clamped my hands over his shoulders. “Stand straight son. Old Jack went blind a few years back but I can tell you he sees life better than most men I know. I bet you he’s probably seeing the smiling face of his wife or someone from church.”
“Where’s his wife and why would he be smiling for her?”
I pulled him to a couch where we watched Old Jack shuffle toward the dining room. “He met his wife at a dance during the war and they hid together through the bombing. He met her again at a five-and-dime store where he asked her for a date. She told him that she’d only date believers and he got interested in church real fast.” Old Jack set his walker to the side, pulled out his chair and seated himself, waiting for his tablemates to arrive. “He not only became a believer; he became a pastor and pastored two dozen churches in his life.”
“Not much of a pastor, if you ask me,” Nicholas said. “Seems nobody wanted him.”
I patted his back. “Not at all. Everyone wanted him. When a church got broken and wounded and struggled to breathe, people would look for old Jack. Seems he was always in the middle of helping tired churches to sing again. He had more hymns in his head than a hymnbook.” We watched him greet another stooped man who sat at his table. “When his wife got Alzheimer's, he would wheel his walker three blocks to the other care home where they put her. She couldn’t hear so well and she sat like a stone until Old Jack started singing near her ear. Every day he would sing her into smiling and she would join him in a duet that filled the hallways.” I watched him bow to pray for the salad that arrived. “Then, when he left, she would return to being a stone. He never missed until she died and then he smiled even more. People asked him why he smiled and he said, ‘my wife has moved but I know her address and I’ll be with her, singing again real soon.’”
“Too bad he didn’t know how to have fun,” Nicholas said.
“Fun? Old Jack invented fun.” I watched him fishing with his spoon for salad. “No matter what church he was at he’d go out into the community and create fun for the children. In one town he dressed up as Santa Claus and flew into the town square in a helicopter with gifts for all the kids. When he moved in here, he dressed up as Santa Claus and had all the old dears sit on his knee for pictures while handing out candy canes.”
“You’d never know all that, looking at him now. It’s not like he’s Jesus.”
“He’s about as close as we get down here, son. That’s why I want to be like him.”
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Old Jack met all the guidelines.
Old Jack was devoted to everything he did and to everyone he met.
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