By Father Vic Gaboury

It looked as though it was to be a busy time both before and during my first Christmas in Jamaica. Didn’t know the local customs and expectations. The parishioners in Seaford Town where I lived had asked for midnight Mass, and Christmas day there would be Masses in two mission stations at opposite ends of the area I cover.

The road resembles Chinese noodles with twist and turns all the way. I’d be picking up 20 to 35 people along the way in a van made to hold 15.

The day after Christmas there was to be an all-day and all-night church festival - so where or with whom I’d have Christmas dinner wasn’t on the top of my mind.

Then I met Mrs. Marriott on a Communion call to her home. She was frail 87 years, living alone in a small shack, the corner held up with a few stones, and walls inside covered with newspaper to keep out the cool night air up here in the hills of Jamaica. There was no paint on the walls, nothing that looked like home-but I know that whatever she had there, was a home for her and every rag and bottle important.

She welcomed me in after the heavy task of getting her door opened. Inside, in one corner, she had her wood-burning “stove” the metal rim of the car wheel. This lady wasn’t poor, she was destitute. We talked for some time or rather she talked for a long time, telling me of her life and what she was doing through, alone and with out any income apart from $3.50 (American dollars)a month that was her Jamaican old age pension. Along the way I ask her what she would be doing for Christmas and she said “Nothing”, that she is alone and has no family.

So I told her that I would be alone too and could I bring my dinner there and have it with her. She thought that would be nice.

On Christmas day I didn’t finish my last station mission till 1:30 PM. I thought she would be wondering if I’d forgotten our date. When I finally got home I heated up our meal and hurried to her place to find that she had no doubt I’d come eventually. She had a small two by two foot table covered with a clean cloth and two sets without backs. (Of course there was no running water or inside plumbing.) I’d bought plates and eating utensils and we sat down and she prayed for God's blessing. She talked and eat with relish .I don’t know which she enjoyed the most - but enjoy, she did!

She talked of a relative who lived to be over100 years and I asked her if she would like to live that long. She said,” Well, if the Lord gives me many years, I would like it, but if He takes me tomorrow, that is O.K. too

I had wrapped a calendar with the picture of the Sacred Heart on it and some old clothing I had from home, washed and ironed. After dinner I gave them to her and she receive them as if it were an everyday event. But she unwrapped the calendar and saw the picture it wasn’t anything she said that struck me but the way she touched and relished every details as if it were gold. And it was the same with the other “ gifts” as she opened them, saying  nothing. After it was all over, she looked at me with a sparkle in her eyes and said “Everyone needs a boost once in a while.”

Before I left she went to the corner of the room and started lifting many things off the large tin, saying she wanted to give me something to take home and I wondered what she might buried beneath all this.

She finally reached the can and took out a bunch of bananas she had there - both for ripening and to keep them safe from rats. With pride she handed me a bunch to take home, happy to be able to give me something. And so she did! Too bad, I had to eat the bananas - because if I could put them with other thing recalling special moments, they would be sitting there with the most memorable, reminding me not only of my first Christmas in Jamaica  but of Christmas  spent with a gracious lady. I came away with her words ringing in my ears, “We all need a boost now and then” –and I didn’t have to reflect too long to realize it was she who had given just that.

Fr. Gaboury served 20 years in the Philippines before his assignment to Jamaica.