Richard Plass - The Relational Soul: Moving from False Self to Deep Connection

H arry lived directly across the road from my (Rich) house in upstate New York. He was alone in his mid-nineteenth-century farmhouse, which was barely hanging on to its earlier days of beauty. Harry would occasionally eat dinner with our family, paying my mother four or five dollars a week for his meals. His claim to fame at our dinner table was pouring chicken gravy on my mothers homemade apple pie. How that tasted Im not sure; I never tried it!

One night when I was twelve years old I woke up frightened out of my wits. It sounded as if someone was kicking in the front door, which was immediately below my bedroom. I heard my father jump out of bed and head down the stairs, muttering things I cannot repeat here. Opening the door he came face to face with Harry. Harry barged into our front room, settled into a yawning floral blue chair without a word and in a matter of minutes was sound asleep. My father climbed the stairs still muttering pretty much what he did on the way down. By 6 a.m. Harry had disappeared back into his old farmhouse.

Harrys midnight episodes continued over the next six months. He routinely woke up my family by pounding on the door. Each time my father muttered as he headed down the stairs to let Harry into the front room, where Harry slept until early morning. These episodes stopped when Harry was taken to the hospital. My mother told me he was terminally ill with cancer. Several weeks later Harry died alone.

Many things struck me about Harry. There was the thing about pouring gravy on apple pie. And there was his beating on our door in the middle of the night.