He was not merely chosen to do it. He was charged with a duty to do it, charged with God’s duty to make sense of this for us, to make sense of this for heartbroken people, aching people.
But how could he? How could anyone make sense of this? How could he even speak of it?
He began by saying, “Dear friends…” then, pausing before saying, “Jim Mahon,” and then silence set in. There was then a pause, followed by another pause. The pause lengthened before it lengthened some more. Something happens to time at moments like these, as it happened here, this day. There is icy silence on occasions like this that turns seconds to minutes, and minutes to hours. Father Chris composed himself, as he let the silence continue. He would try one more time, then capitulate, and let the course of it play out.
Jim Mahon meant that much to all of us. The silence told it all.
This was by no means the first time that Father Chris had been immobilized by this grief. The family had asked for him at the moment of Jim’s death, at that terrible moment.
He was doing parish work at his parish, St. John Vianney, in big city Windsor, when the desperate call came in.
“Father Chris,” the anonymous caller implored. “There has been a terrible tragedy. You are needed there immediately.” The caller, Jeannette Sylvester, hung up the phone without giving further details. Father Chris would know her voice well. Introductions should not be necessary in this climate of urgency.
Father Chris left at once, not sure who it was that needed him, but he was on his way. He sped out of Windsor at the fastest possible speed. He flew down the 401, a relatively new highway, getting off at Manning road, taking it south to the North Rear Road. Then, he headed east on it.
He was planning to go to the Quinlan homestead to ask if they knew who was badly in distress. Then he knew. The many cars at the Mahon residence gave it away. Father Chris knew at once.
“Good Lord,” he said out loud. “It’s the Mahons,” he said as he blessed himself, and at once prayed that God would give him the strength to help. As he sped into the Mahon driveway, he was speechless.
“I never saw so many people in need of help,” he would say later. “I didn’t know who to minister to first.”
There were 50 or 60 people there, and every one of them was immobilized with grief. Many members of the Hayes family were already there, all of them disconsolate. Jimmy Hayes, the uncle for whom Jim was named was especially lost here this day, even blaming himself, wishing he could trade places with his hero, his nephew, his pride and joy.
“It’s Jim,” someone said finally. Father Chris stopped in his tracks.
“You can’t mean it,” he nearly said, and if it was a different occasion, he too, would need counsel to deal with the tragedy. Instead, he prayed to his God, the God he loved. He prayed for strength that day, for he would need the entirety of God’s love at this exact moment. He would need every ounce of strength he could gather from his God, to even continue now. He would need all of it, and he would need it now. He prayed to his own deceased mother, who had always been his inspiration. He also prayed to his late father for strength, the strength he had inherited from him.
As he had sped into the farm yard with the many carloads of people already there, and more arriving with each moment, the young, heretofore confident clergyman was completely taken aback. How could anyone possibly make sense of this tragedy? For how could God have revoked that great gift that he had given to this family, to this community, this gift that was Jim Mahon? How could God possibly have revoked that great gift?
And then he was called upon to walk into that suffering house to hug and to hold Ed and Maxine. Words were useless now. And what could he possibly do for the suffering Mahon children?
All the while, Jim’s close friend from the Petes, Bruce Abbey, sped back down the 401 from London to the Mahon farm. He had just left that farm mere hours earlier, speeding to London from it, for work after a morning of training with Jim. He had, in fact, left a mere hour or so before Jim’s death.
“It couldn’t be true,” he said on arrival in London. “I was with him an hour ago.” Bruce would be a tower of strength for the family that day, as he had been for Jim.
2
A COMMUNITY’S SUPERSTAR
The phone rang. It was Ed Mahon, a man of few, but well-chosen words.
“Mrs. Byrne,” he said, “you had mentioned that I could call you if Jim ever needed a ride to hockey, and I know you do groceries at Sadler’s on Saturday’s. Is there any chance you can give Jim a ride to the rink today?”
“Sure, I would be happy to,” my mother said in her Lithuanian accented English. “I’ll come right over.”
My mother grabbed a sip of her tea, put on a light jacket, grabbed her purse, and burst out the door. She opened the door to her car, an older Corvair, sat down, and turned the key to start the ignition. The engine didn’t roll over. She tried again. Again, the engine sat in silence.
Just then, our neighbour Amie drove in with the other Corvair, the one he had used to give my mother driving lessons. Amie had told her, “Corvairs need a lot of fixing. You had better get two if you like driving them, so I can fix one while you drive the other one. I will only charge you for the parts I have to buy, that is, if I can’t make them myself.”
The system worked perfectly, and this was a prime example of it. “Hello Amie,” she said, “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“Here are the keys,” Amie replied. “What’s wrong with this one?” he asked.
“It won’t start,” my mother replied.
“The alternator must be gone again,” he replied. “You better go,” Amie said to remind her that she was in a hurry, “and drive carefully,” he added.
“I will, Amie,” she replied. My mother sat down in the other Corvair. “Good bye Amie,” she called as she shifted it into gear, and drove out the laneway. She pulled out onto the North Rear Road, heading west, in the direction of the Mahon farm, two roads over. She drove fast for a Corvair, its oscillating steering having a mind of its own. The Corvair was hard to steer in the best of circumstances, but on a gravel road like the North Rear, it was a constant effort in correction, and over-correction.
My mother hurried along, for a distance of about a mile, to the John Zack farm. She looked left, at the side road there that backed onto the North Rear Road. She looked in the direction that led first to Sacred Heart School, which Jim attended. That road also led to the Town of Essex.
Ahead, she saw a young man running with his hockey equipment in tow, and a hockey stick in hand. She turned down the road, on a hunch it might be Jim, sped up a little, pulled up beside the lad, who was now in full sprint.
“Do you want a ride?” she asked.
“Sure,” Jim replied, “I’m late for hockey.”
“Let’s hurry then,” my mother replied as Jim ran around to the back of the car to put his equipment in the trunk. My mother called out, “This car is a Corvair. They got mixed up. They put the trunk in the front of the car.”
“Oh yeah, I should have known,” Jim replied as he ran around to the front of the car, put his equipment into the trunk, not able to fit the stick in, pulled open the door on the passenger side of the car and said, “is it alright if I bring my stick into the car?”
“Sure,” my mother replied as she watched him squeeze his large muscular frame, though yet he was only a boy, into the front seat of the car. “Sure,” my mother replied. “It won’t hurt the upholstery,” she said intending to make a joke, as the car was old-looking, and dusty from travel on the gravelled country roads. Jim hesitated, not wanting to offend her. “Please,” she said, “bring your stick in, or I will be late for groceries.” Jim laughed as he pulled the car door shut, and they departed for Essex.
Not