April 30: Her Own Horse, Working Hands, Saint Joseph the Worker

She ran and bought her ticket and got back on the goddam carrousel just in time.  Then she walked all the way around it till she got her own horse back.  Then she got on it.  She waved to me and I waved back.

I love these happy moments in Catcher when Holden is with Phoebe.  The innocence and love present in these passages is more than heartbreaking.  It's wrenching.  Holden is clinging on to life by his fingernails, his bloody and bitten fingernails.  Holden actually slows down when he's with Phoebe, takes time to let himself be happy.

I often think of Joseph, how much joy he must have gotten out of watching Christ grow from infant to toddler to boy.  I sort of picture him like Holden in the passage above, sitting on the ground outside his home, watching his Son climb a palm tree or throw stones into pools of rainwater.  I imagine Christ waving at Joseph, and Joseph waving back, the way my son waves at me from his school bus window as the bus pulls away.  I always fight the impulse to chase the bus, to keep waving like a lunatic, to let him know I'll always be there for him.  It breaks my heart when the bus turns the corner and disappears from my sight.  Every time.  I wonder how often Joseph's heart broke.

On May 1, 1955, Pope Pius XII declared that May 1 the feast day of Saint Joseph the Worker.  It is a day that celebrates Joseph, who was a carpenter, a man who supported his family with his calloused and splintered hands.  He probably taught his Son the craft of woodworking, and, in the evening, rested his weary arms and back after a long day's labor.

My father was a licensed master plumber.  I remember him climbing into his work truck every morning, his handwritten list of service calls in his hands.  He was hard as cast iron (still is).  He could tear the Detroit phone book in half with his hands.  He taught each of his kids the value of hard work, the way, I'm sure, Joseph taught Jesus.  Whether washing dishes for a living or teaching Intro to Film to a group of college students, I've always kept my father's fingers in my mind.  They were thick and cracked, ridged with dirt all the time, no matter how often he washed them.  They were a working man's hands.  Joseph's hands.  Hands that struggled to provide.

That's what I try to do every day.  Provide happiness, security, and comfort for my wife and children.  I think I work hard, but my hands aren't full of splinters or caked with dirt or grease.  But they're hands that struggle to provide, as well.  And, on the eve of the feast day of Saint Joseph the Worker, I admire all fathers' hands.  All working hands.

Saint Marty is going to say a little thank-you prayer for his father tonight.

Thanks, Dad