The Necklace

It was the 28th of September in the year of our Lord 2006. I know this because it was the 10th anniversary of my wife’s death. That's when I was ordained. You see, when people think of a priest they think of a man of the cloth, and they would be right. They also tend to think of long robes, abstinence, and aging gentlemen. Those are fairly accurate.

People rarely tend to think of a priest as a person with a past. They seem to think that priests are born and are either forced to become priests by their families or seem to know from birth that they are going to become one. While I’m not going to say that is incorrect for some, or even most, I will say that it is not true for me.

In my younger years, I was not a gentleman. I was bitter, angry, and like most adolescents, I thought I could take on the world. I had actually been training to be an underground cage fighter. No, I’m not kidding. I was training to become a cage fighter in one of the most inhospitable areas you could find. Why? Because I was prideful and while it was that pride that first attracted my soon to be wife, it was also that pride that led to the events of her death.

After a fight one night, I met Angela. She was raised in a devout Catholic home and honestly hated it. I know this because she wore a cross around her neck which prompted me to ask about it. She had told me that her grandfather had given it to her shortly before he died. He wanted it to remind her of where she came from should she ever feel lost. This message of being lost, she felt, was beaten into her head over and over again by the church, which drove her nuts. She had rolled her eyes at the notion that a simple cross would help anyone but she always loved her grandfather so she accepted it kindly and wore it often, even more so after his death.

She had seen me win a typical match, and I think she was looking for her life to be anything that wasn’t the Church. She would often complain about how boring and pointless it all was. She saw how strong and confident I was and I think she just wanted to share in the excitement of it all.

I continued to win matches, she continued to cheer me on, and after a time, we got married. It wasn’t elaborate at all. We didn’t want it to be. We were happy to be with one another and could care less about the “typical wedding.” We did it to symbolize our commitment together. Life was simple. I had a wife and, while unconventional, a job. We even considered having children at one point.

However, when you are a cage fighter, things are more complicated than most people realize. While you need to defeat your opponent, simple. You also need to play your part. What I mean by that is there are the agents, the bookies, and the gamblers and you are in the middle of all that, not simple.

It turned out that one of the gamblers was planning to place a bet where I was supposed to lose. I had never lost and I wasn’t about to start… and I didn’t. I thought it was dumb. I argued that he should just bid on me to win. The problem was that he wouldn’t win enough money and if I didn’t lose he was … going to get angry. Having seen what “angry” meant for other people, I begrudgingly agreed.

I was supposed to throw the fight, my first loss. Angela said that it didn’t matter. She said that she knew I was the best fighter out there and that winning didn’t matter as much as my career. If only my opponent didn’t have a glass jaw, I might have actually lost. So as you might imagine, they took it out on me… and her. Honestly, I’m just glad it was quick. It could have been so much worse for her.

We were running after the fight was over to get to our apartment to get some bags and leave the area. They spotted us and ran us down. I tried to push her out of the way but the vehicle was faster than I thought and the driver probably corrected to make sure they got us both. I was taken over the top of the vehicle and she went under the wheels. They apparently just kept going. I can only assume so because I woke up in the hospital with a few fractured ribs and a concussion. I was told that a passing motorist had called the police, which is how I ended up there.

The last time I saw her was in the morgue as the vehicle had killed her instantly. Sadly, that memory is burned into my head and has almost overshadowed the entire memory I have of her. I suppose it’s some sort of justice for my sins.

The hospital gave me her personal effects, which included her necklace. I stared at that necklace for so long. I kept thinking about how boring she said she was in her life before me. How she kept the necklace not because she was devout but because she loved the person who gave it to her. When I put it on, it felt heavy. It was a small necklace but I just felt loss and guilt with it but it was hers and I loved her so much, so I wore it.

I went to tell her family what had happened. They deserved to hear it and I felt like I needed to be the one to say it. Call it my first penance. They were rightly upset and rightly blamed me. I couldn’t argue with them. Most of them yelled at me, some of them hit me, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was the last person I talked to. It was Angela’s grandmother, Sarah. She was the wife of the grandfather that had given Angela the necklace. She didn’t yell at me. She didn’t hit me. She saw the necklace I was wearing.

Sarah asked me if I thought I deserved to wear it. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stared at her with tears welling up in my eyes. She asked me what I felt while wearing it. I told her that it was heavy. It reminded me of my love for Angela but also of my guilt for getting her killed. I said this as the tears ran down my face. Then she did what I never expected her to do. She hugged me. She was crying and I was crying. We were crying together in our grief. She told me in that embrace that I understood the necklace more than most people do in their entire lives. With that understanding and the love I had for Angela, she said that I deserved to wear it.

After a time, Sarah taught me about the meaning of the necklace I was wearing. She said that I understood the emotions behind it but that I needed to understand its history to fully appreciate it. So, I studied with her. I learned and I appreciated, more than most do in their entire lives. And now I am here, living next to the church where I teach others to understand what I came to understand the hard way, the emotions behind the necklace. The necklace is much lighter now.

I have to say though, Angela was right. Catholic teachings really are boring.