A Reflection for John P. Gualtieri, Jr. Thomas E Wilson, Friend
March 1, 1935 - February 28, 2022 March 19, 2021
Johnny G.
One of the things about being retired is that there a lot less things that just have to be done; where we have the opportunity to stop being “human doings” and become “Human Beings.” Human Doing is about skipping across the surface of life to reach this or that goal, to get this or that thing or win this or that prize. To be a Human Being is to live deeply into the moment of being and to give thanks for the gift of each moment. There is a wonderland of moments where love is found and heaven is touched, or heaven touches us. We are all touched by the holy.
I knew John Gualtieri only after he had retired and moved down to the Outer Banks, a mere almost 19 years of his almost 87 years of his life walking on this earth. Our walk together began about 2 days after I moved into the house on the Outer Banks, boxes all over the place and John Gualtieri, a man 11 years my senior, who had moved down here from New Jersey about six months before me, shows up with a lawn mover to cut the grass. He came as a neighbor making a friend of a newcomer. I dawdled about accepting the gift, because as the Rector of the Church, you have to be careful about receiving gifts you cannot get even with.
I had been taught in Seminary, and before that as a Counselor and Social Worker, to keep a Professional distance from clients and parishioners; you are not there to take or exploit; but rather to feed not fleece. A Good Rector of a Church remembers that he or she is, first and foremost, a servant of God, and of the members of the Parish and of the community in which he or she is employed. I started the road down away from being a good Rector of All Saints when I accepted his gift. I am reminded of one of the worst Presidents of the United State a century ago , Warren G Harding. It was good, his father once told him, that he hadn't been born a girl, "because you'd be in the family way all the time. You can't say no."
John was one of those people with whom I could never get even. How can I get even with a man who invites Pat and I over to dinner and/or an evening of playing games like Mexican Train, or Oh Hell, hundreds of time in 19 years? How could you get even with a guy who helped me get my annual infant Baptism fix, inflating the numbers with his children and grandchildren dragooned into attendance year after year on Thanksgiving Day services. Or who insisted that I be assured a place at the movable Thanksgiving Feast table even when my place card was set on fire by a candle at the Feast Table. Or, and this is important, that every time I was a guest, he made sure that there was a chilled Martini glass in the freezer and a perfectly mixed pitcher of Martinis cooling in the refrigerator and Never, Never forgetting the stuffed olives.
I was especially thankful of John's gift of reading. John had been a lawyer so he knew how to read laws, contracts, policies, charts and graphs. He could read a room and knew how to help change the emotional temperature in a meeting. He could read people and tell me when I needed to get involved in situations.
For the19 years that we knew each other, John was easy to love, because I didn't need to worry about disappointing him. We had both lived long enough by finding how we didn't to carry around a bunch of stuff we didn't need, like approval and disapproval. Both of us worked with people for decades. The questions we would ask ourselves are; “Is this a person someone that I need to spend time with out of duty, or is this a person I want to be with, in times good or ill, for the sheer joy of being in the presence of something greater than ourselves?”
John could love, love to a depth that was heart breaking. He loved sports which made it unthinkable that he would die before the annual March Madness. The greatest gift he gave me was to love my wife and treat her with respect and honor. He never passed judgment on her. Clergy spouses can be an easy target and his spirit and prayers were always with us during her illnesses. He loved his family and we spent many hours talking about his loving concern for every member of every generation of the Gualtieri clan. Especially, how he loved Maureen, thanking God each day for her. He obsessed about her getting ill for fear that he might have to spend the remaining years alone. There is something about getting older where each moment is too precious to waste. As Shakespeare wrote in Sonnet 73:
This thou perceivest,
which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou
must leave ere long.
In these 19 years, I met a whole bunch of people that I grew to love, trust and share moments of grace and John was one of them. We worked together, prayed together and played together; opening our hearts and lives to each other and to the Holy Space in, between, and beyond us. Some of these people have died. And I prayed for many of them in their dying that they were, alive or dead, in God's love and mine.
One of those last moments being touched by the Holy was being in the Hospital Room with John. I was not there as his professional Priest, but as his friend and, by purely honorary status, as a family member. I leaned forward and put my hand on his blanket on his shoulders. Living into each moment opens up pathways of the millions of other moments we have been given. At that moment I re-lived the touch of my father's hands on my blanketed shoulder as he tucked my brothers and I into our beds. In that moment my father would turn down the lights to listen to our prayers which had the phrase, “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” followed by all the blessings. In that moment with John, knowing I was losing a friend in my life, I almost said, “If you should die before you wake I pray the Lord your soul to take!” I didn't and I mumbled some more adult prayer as I commended him to God's grace and followed by blessings for all the ones who loved and would miss him.
The blending of those two moments, the present and past colliding, was a trip back to a time I didn't know a thing about death and loss. I had healthy grandparents; nobody I knew was ever going to die. Then, when I was in the 6th grade my grandfather, who we knew as “Daddy Wilson”, a legend in our family, as John is in his, died, despite my prayers to keep him alive. We were assured that his soul was in Heaven and we should be thankful. At the funeral my father had some tears; which shocked me for he was the strongest man I knew.
Then another moment collided, and it was me standing at my father's bed in a Hospital room, as I touched his blanketed shoulder and said silent prayers. My father and I walked on the same earth for 19 years before he died, despite my prayers to keep him alive. His death was also the death of my belief in God for awhile. When my father was alive, I disappointed him in so many ways. We argued about so many things; but in the end it always came back to love. Everything is redeemed by love. Some relationships may end or change, or people will die - but the moments live on as long as we live open to moments of grace, touched by the holy.
Johnny G.
Thank you for loving me and my wife,
sharing your soul, leaving us those parts
not as a arithmetic subtraction of hearts,
but as a geometric multiplication of life.
Your soul, always remaining in God's hands,
was also very freely gifted and never taken
away from us by your death, nor forsaken
but bound by unbreakable spiritual bands.
Echoes of your laughter resounding in us
cause memories to be freed from the herd
of all the treasures gifted word by word
by you over these so many moments thus.
Bless you, our brother, for kindness shared,
for you were indeed a gift who truly cared.
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