Pete (not his real name) stands at the door of the YMCA in my neighborhood. Developmentally challenged, this young man in his twenties opens the doors for people hurrying in and out. Sometimes, he dispenses stickers appropriate to the season of the year as people leave. This Good Friday was no exception.
I had attended the Maundy Thursday service at church the night before. The church balcony was empty and dark. The small crowd gathered in the evening shadows below. We left the service in silence to a darkening sky.
I awoke the next morning to a dreary and cool day, rain seeping from gray clouds. “That’s the way Good Friday should be,” I told myself as I rushed out to the Y to get some treadmill time and needed recreation. “The exercise will do me good and lift my spirits,” I reasoned.
After a half-hearted work out (you know the excuse you make for not working as hard as you should, mine is “the back problem”), I lumbered toward the door.
There was Pete, smiling as usual. I nodded hello. In his impaired speech, he asked if I wanted a sticker. “You select one for me,” I answered. Pete beamed as he always does when someone agrees to a sticker. Lacking some dexterity, he laboriously removed a sticker from the waxed sheet.
Placing the sticker on the tip of his finger, he offered it to me. I thought of the Maundy Thursday meal the night before, how the bread was offered from the finger tips of the minister. I took the little sticker and slapped it on my lapel, not realizing what it was.
Looking down at my newly decorated lapel, I saw the image of a colorful butterfly.
Pete laughed. So did I.
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