Fifth Avenue Freezing Rain
January in Manhattan can be cruel. Freezing rain was whipping off the high-rises, turning the gutters into slush lakes. My leather boots had worn-through soles, and my socks were soaked in icy grey brine.
In my coat pocket was an official red-stamped eviction notice from Queens Housing Court. In my checking account was exactly $23.40. I had been laid off from a boutique printing press six months earlier, and my pride prevented me from begging my estranged siblings for help.
I pushed through the massive bronze doors of St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. I didn't enter to worship; I entered because the doors were unlocked, the security guards didn't chase off shabbily dressed men, and the heat was radiating from the cast-iron floor grates.
The Pew in the Shadow of the Lady Chapel
I slipped into a pew near the rear left colonnade, pulled my wet coat tight, and buried my face in my sleeves. I was thirty-four years old, shaking from hypothermia, and completely broken.
Tears began to drip onto the polished oak wood of the kneeler. I whispered into the collar of my jacket: *'I can't do this anymore. New York has defeated me. If there is any mercy in this universe, show me a path, because I have run out of road.'*
I must have fallen asleep from emotional exhaustion for twenty minutes. When I woke up, the tourists had cleared out. Resting beside me on the wooden pew was a thick, hand-knitted burgundy wool scarf. Tucked inside the woolen folds was an envelope containing a 30-day unlimited MetroCard and three crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. Written on the back of the envelope in green felt pen: *'You are going to make it. Eat dinner tonight.'*
Ten Years Later
I never saw who left it. Was it a wealthy Fifth Avenue socialite? A tourist? An angel in a trench coat? It didn't matter. Those three hundred dollars and that MetroCard gave me the seventy-two hours I needed to find temporary warehouse work in Long Island City, pay off the immediate eviction stay, and rebuild my life step by painful step.
Today, I manage a bookbinding studio in Brooklyn. Every January on that exact freezing Tuesday, I return to that pew in St. Patrick's, leave a warm wool scarf and an envelope with cash for whoever is sitting with their head in their hands.
Grace is real. It travels through human hands. On Solas Haven, my star burns as eternal testimony: do not give up in the cathedral of your despair. Help is already on its way.
Related Memoirs & Chronicles
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