I was much concerned for Dr. Shirey. Standing there now
behind the pulpit, he looked bone tired. And no wonder, for
besides his parish work he was forever running here and there-to
the juvenile detention home, the clinic for alcoholics, the
mental health center, the Black ghetto. Often, he told me, he got
discouraged over it all.
Never did I mention to him how I felt: bewildered, lost, like
an autumn leaf caught up in an angry storm and carried far away
from its forest, a leaf that longed to stay where it was, there
to turn golden yellow, then brown, and finally, late on a winter
evening, to flutter to the ground and to its sleep beneath the
trees.
Nor would I ever breathe to my young pastor that some days I
was utterly cast down, so broken in heart that I wished I were a
little girl again and could run and hide under my grandma's bed.
I couldn't confide such a thing to Dr. Shirey. It would show I
had lost courage -as so many older persons do when change comes
with the years. Half the patients at Crestview are like that.
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