Mammoth Christmas Party 1956: From Left to Right (Part 5)

THE SAINT

Seven faces.

Well, six and a half faces. Four women -- three men. A couple partially empty bottles of champagne, pearl necklaces, and an empty chair in the foreground.

The trio in the middle is the most corrupt. They get strange looks from people who don't even know them because they put off a sour aroma that the soul can sense. The woman to the right of the man in the middle is the most peculiar of the three. She's a one hundred and ten percent, true blue, holy rolling, honest to goodness devout follower of Jesus Christ and the core Christian faith. She's a good girl -- she loves Jesus. Of course, she's not to be confused with the Christians wrapping around the mid west and making up the good ol' Bible-thumping Bible Belt. Never has she pushed someone or hated them for not sharing her beliefs. That's not to say that she's never attempted to share the gospel because she most certainly has done that. But all she really is guilty of in that category is love.

For her, it all started in the home that her father had built with his bare hands. He was a genuine craftsman, a jack-of-all-trades if you will. He built it for his wife, who was pregnant. They had five children total and the girl who would later come to serve the Lord was the last to come. This was not a home of Christianity, or any defined theism for that matter. The newly blessed parents were seemingly good people and they loved their children. They loved them so much that they gave the first born very special attention. Without any guilt whatsoever, the father would molest her -- and the mother would watch. This continued on even after the second child, another girl, was born. She suffered the same treatment. As was the same for the next female child. Finally, child number four was a male. The mother had wanteda son since she had been at the altar. She now had someone to experiment with. And the father had just another to add to his collection. When he was old enough, he was persuaded to lie with his older sisters and told that there was absolutely nothing taboo about it. The parents just wanted to watch their children strengthen their bonds. And if the children didn't know how to perform something asked, the parents would show them.

The last daughter to enter the house was not touched as a child. However, she did grow in years while watching her parents defile one another and the other children. But for some odd reason, they never touched her or asked her to participate. Still, the girl was forever scarred. That is how she came to love Jesus. It was her interpretation that God had spared her from the destructive hands of her parents. She realized this after all of her siblings committed a mass suicide. It was two days before her graduation. That was when she knew that all the insecurities she had about attending school at the collegiate level were insignificant. She had been accepted to a plethora of schools and it was set in her mind that she would leave her parents' house, never look back, and go to university.

She graduated with flying colors. She earned a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology with a Minor in Music. She was a truly gifted flautist. Because she had been so overly exposed to sex and unimaginable volatility, she never accepted offers from the opposite sex. She sacrificed her first kiss, which had yet to come, in order to excel in her studies and better develop her relationship with God. However, her education and drive could only get her a job as a teller at a prestigious bank.

Over the next few months, she yearned for something more. She prayed that the void she was feeling be filled. She prayed f or a sign. God seemed to have taken a vacation from this woman's problems. Finally, she decided that it was her job that was contributing to her unhappiness. One day, she marched into the bank, knowing that she would quit at the end of the day, and did her job as usual. As she was thinking about what her spontaneous jump into the world would be like, a man walked in with a heavy deposit. She had seen him before but never assisted him. That changed when he walked to her counter. He asked her out for a drink after her shift and she knew that his request was God's sign.

Throughout the next year, they became a fully functional couple. He was fine with the fact that she was a virgin and the first man she had ever touched. She was happy to find someone so surprisingly normal and enchanting -- especially in her first and only boyfriend. When the day came, she had no reservations about saying, "I do."

At the wedding, she met her new sister-in-law. She thought her to be cute but quite odd. For whatever reason, she just knew there was something about her. It was obvious that her husband's sister had some unexplained feelings about the new happy couple but nothing was ever discussed.

This woman smiles at the camera because she is happy and it's what she does best. Even when thoughts of her family prancing around the house naked and moaning filter into her mind, she forces a smile. She always relies on God and thanks Him for a husband that is true to her and responsible for keeping the woman from making a huge mistake. He's the sign and secondary savior that was sent down to fill the void in her life.