John Paul II: First in a Series

{ Note: this is going to the first of two posts about John Paul II. This one will be my thoughts about him and his passing. The second will encompass his legacy and my hopes for the future.}

John Paul II was elected when I was seven years old. He has, quite literally, been Pope for most of my conscious life. I don't remember the popes who came before him and it's something of a shock to think that there will actually someone coming after him. It's so odd that he's died. One would have thought he was so strong that he could have actually defied mortality and lived forever.

I vaguely remember when John Paul II was elected. It was on a brilliant autumn Saturday afternoon. The leaves had started to turn in Omaha and we had been outside playing. The morning had been something of a frustration for my sister and I, as our regular routine had been upset: the Loony Toons had been interrupted umpteen many times by "regular reports from the Vatican" where they were electing a new pope. I remember the reporter sounding vaguely exhausted about the smoke that had appeared. This was all well and good, and as good little Catholics, we were happy they were talking about our religion, but for the love of all that was good and holy, they were interrupting The. Loony. Toons. We'd finally given up after a time and had gone outside to play. Hours passed, my father had returned from working his usual Saturday morning hours at the bank and was camped out in the Family Room, watching college football. They interrupted his game with the report that a new pope had been elected. And, to the amazement of all the grownups in the room---meaning my dad---he was Polish.

This, to put it mildly, was a big deal in our household.

My dad's ethnic makeup is entirely Polish. I'm half Polish, half-German, which I've learned in recent years is as unadulterated an ancestral line as you get nowadays. Everyone's got some of this, some of that, but I'm half and half. That doesn't happen too often. God help us when we have kids: the husband is such a mutt that he doesn't know what the percentages are. While my Mom would contribute a bit of this and a bit of that from her German heritage, it was the Polish part that ruled the roost.

This is not to say that we were as obnoxious about our heritage as our Irish neighbors. We weren't. But, after all, with a name like "Zabawa" it's not like you can avoid having people know you're Polish. Particularly in Omaha, which is just chock-a-block full of the descendants of Eastern Europeans. They know you're not Czech, or Romanian, or Bohunk Bohemian; they can tell. But, we lived where all the Irish people lived. Our parish was named "St. Margaret Mary," who, if I remember correctly was actually a French saint, but you didn't bother telling the Irish that. To their way of thinking, if she was French, it would have been "Marguerite Marie." Half of my grade school class had last names that began with "Mc" or "O'" or something Irish. And if they didn't have an Irish last name, well, they had Irish on their mother's side. Red hair was not uncommon. As far as other ethnicities being represented, well, we had some Italians, some Germans, and some mutts of indistinct origin as well, but more Polish kids? Well, you were definitely in the minority of the minorities. As such, we had to suck it up when St. Patrick's Day came around. The vice-prinicpal of our school, Mr. McCormack (see what I mean?), would allow everyone to wear green and we'd get the afternoon off to watch "The Quiet Man" or "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" in the school auditorium. And it rankled. I do believe Christi, my sister, had the guts to wear red on St. Patrick's Day once, but I don't remember what came of it. So, you might imagine, it was a bit of sweet revenge that we had a brand-spanking-new pope and he was Polish.

How cool was that? It was instant revenge for having to endure dumb Polack joke after dumb Polack joke. Jokes that poke fun at the Irish are funny, because they generally poke fun at the fact the Irish are fond of imbibing. Polack jokes are mean because they declare if you're Polish, you're automatically stupid. Like there's something in the water in Poland that makes them and their descendants dumb. After you've been the butt of one too manyof these types of jokes because of your heritage, it was nice to be able to come back with, Oh, sure, you've got St. Patrick, but has there ever been an Irish pope? I don't think so. (I know, it's pretty lame. But this was Catholic school, ok? This stuff was on the brain and a comeback is a comeback.)

And thus entered John Paul II into my life as a Catholic. He was pope before I started taking communion. He was pope before I celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation (that's confession for all you heretics). He was pope when I was confirmed. I can't remember a time at mass when the priest didn't say, "John Paul our Pope" during the consecration. The principal of our school interrupted math class when I was in fifth grade to announce over the PA that he'd been shot and that we should all stop what we were doing and pray for him to be all right. I remember why the Popemobile was needed. The rosary I have is one that my father had blessed by John Paul II when he said mass at Living History Farms in Des Moines---a two hour trip from Omaha---a year after he'd been elected. So many people were going to Des Moines that day, they actually dismissed all of the Catholic schools in Omaha for the day. He was pope when I was married ten years ago, and just recently, when our friends Brad and Margo were married last fall, their family had arranged for the priest to unwrap a papal blessing for their marriage during the ceremony. It had John Paul's signature on it---and we're talking real ink here, not his John Hancock from some signing machine. I found out he was our new pope from a grainy, taped satellite feed on TV. I found out about his death from the husband, who had learned about it over "guild chat" in World of Warcraft. I then turned on the tee vee and there was St. Peter's Square, live, the satellite feed perfect in its clarity. Life has changed. Not only my life, but the life of the world. And he was there for all of that. He had to negotiate it. He had to manage it. It could not have been easy to have all of that on his shoulders when there was so much else to worry about.

He's been everywhere in my lifetime and he has surrounded my practice of Catholicism with his presence. This is why it feel so odd that he's gone. He went from being an anonymous presence in the way of larger-than-life people in my childhood to being a human being, a priest and the leader of my church in my adulthood. That he's no longer around, well, it feels like something has gone. I'm having a hard time putting my finger on it, but everything feels different.

I have disagreed with him aplenty. I have wondered what the heck he was doing with this, that or the other action. His words, deeds and his inaction, and the words, deeds and inaction he authorized the princes of the church to enact, have shaken my faith in a way that no other human being or organization has managed to achieve over my thirty-four-year lifespan. I have wondered just how much he was aware of what was going on around him in recent years. All of this aside, though, he was still the pope.

And now he's gone. The book has been closed and placed on the shelf, and a new one will be opened shortly. And I feel as if a chapter in my own life has been closed. It's so odd. I'm no further to discovering when I started this post why it's so odd---given that we all knew he was going to pass on sooner rather than later---that he has actually proved himself mortal after all. Expectations, perhaps? I don't know. I just know that for all his flaws, I will miss his steadying presence.

Posted by Kathy at April 4, 2005 03:59 PM