Brother Stephen

[this was written months ago, when I got back from my retreat in the Blue Ridge mountains at a Catholic monastery - I have been a little late getting it posted]

Brother Stephen

Brother Steven lives on, immured in a crumbling mind, dead to this world, or very nearly. The monks no longer visit him because it causes too much disruption to him to see them. He does not know them and he knows he should.

He was quest master when I made my first visit to the abbey ...years ago. Even then his mind seemed a bit dodgy, a thing he remarked on. It seemed the typical self-deprecating remark old people make, but he knew even then.

He left behind in a small charcoal drawing of himself bending to feed his beloved cats. Outside in a little house on the porch still lives the big yellow cat he named Gonzaga after his own school. Gonza still presides over the rear of the guest house, looking not a day older.

I still remember Brother Stephen and some of the things he taught us.