When you speak to him, you’re more likely to get a head nod than a verbal response.  He is incontinent and hearing impaired. Skin rashes and infections are frequent.  His monthly Social Security check comes by way of his cognitive disability.  His unsteady gait makes for slow going when you walk alongside him.

No, I’m not talking about a homeless man or a vet wounded in battle.  I’m describing my 25 year old son, Tommy. 

He will never have his own apartment or a full-time job.  He won’t marry or have children; he may never even have a girlfriend.  He can’t vote or drive a car.  He isn’t able to text or email or tweet.  He can’t cook or shop for food.  Because of his orthotics, he can’t even tie his own shoes.

If I were to stop there, you might feel pity for him – or even for me.  In both cases, it would be egregiously misplaced.  You see, over the last twenty-five years, I have come to understand that I live with a saint.

I don’t use that word in a tongue-in-cheek manner the way that some self-effacing husbands do when describing their wives’ holy patience with them.  I mean it in the traditional notion of a life lived in heroic virtue and fidelity to God’s grace.

Bless me, father, for I have sinned

Consider this.  He has never committed a serious sin – something that is objectively wrong, that he knows is wrong, and that he chooses to do anyway.  Heck, I even doubt that he has been guilty of more than a handful of lesser sins in his whole life.  Stubbornness that amounts to disobedience comes to mind.  But his subsequent “Sorry Daddy” takes the form of perseveration and makes me regret pointing it out to him.

He doesn’t lie, cheat, steal, or do anyone harm.  He doesn’t complain, but not just because his speech is limited. He doesn’t even roll his eyes or sigh emphatically or use other nonverbal means of conveying complaints.  I’m not saying he doesn’t get frustrated from time to time.  That’s when he’ll likely put down his head and utter one of those G-r-r-r-r-s from the throat.

He doesn’t ask for anything, demand anything, or make a Christmas wish list.

But that’s just a partial inventory of things he doesn’t do compared to the rest of us.  It’s what he does do that convinces me of his singular holiness.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Whether it’s a family meal or a breakfast at the table by himself, he says a prayer of blessing before eating and a prayer of thanksgiving afterwards without a single reminder from us.  He then clears his place and puts the dishes in the dishwasher, slides his chair back in place, and turns off the light.  While we put away leftovers and wash pots and pans, he picks up a towel and dries whatever dishes or utensils are in the sink and puts them away in their proper place.

When Madeline is finished folding laundry, if he comes into the room, he quietly picks up his basket of clothes, carries it upstairs, puts everything away, and returns the empty basket to the basement laundry room.

More times than not, when I wake him up in the morning, shortly after he rubs his eyes awake, he tilts his head to the side to get a better view of my face, and gives me a full toothed grin.

He dutifully stands up when told it’s time to get in the car, but never asks where we’re going.  He simply trusts us.  Sitting in traffic, stuck in construction gridlock, or just waiting for a long red light to change, he sits in quiet contrast to my grumbling frustration.  Waiting to be seated at a restaurant, to be seen by a doctor, to be admitted to a concert venue – fill in the blank – are all met with the same serene countenance.

Going My Way?

Wasn’t this the “Little Way” of St. Therese of Liseux?  Profoundly aware of her “littleness” she abandoned herself to Jesus and lived a life of continual acceptance of the will of God in everything.  Succumbing to tuberculosis at age twenty-four, the sisters in her religious order only later realized that they had been living with a saint.

But beyond Tommy’s trusting acceptance and many acts of service, there are those moments when I get a glimpse into his heart.

Last month our household contracted a variant of COVID.  A day after the fever, chills, and headache subsided, I spent some time in our sun porch vacillating between consciousness and catnaps.  At one point, Tommy saw me through the sliding glass doors and came out to sit in the wicker chair next to me.  And sat next to me.  And sat next to me, until 90 minutes had passed.  Are you familiar with the corporal work of mercy called “Visiting the Sick”?  Then he peered out the window past me and promptly got up and left without a word.  I figured he had had enough.

A few minutes later I heard our neighbor wheeling his empty garbage can up the driveway following the trash pickup that day.  But the sound of it being deposited directly beneath my sun porch made me realize it had been Tommy replacing our garbage can. As I waited for him to return to thank him, I was surprised by the sound of our neighbor’s garbage can again.  Sure enough, Tommy had crossed over in his stocking feet to replace theirs, too.

St Teresa of Calcutta famously said “Not all of us can do great things.  But we can do small things with great love.”

That’s Tommy’s Little Way.  And it can be ours, too.

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