The Long, Winding Road

5.

I was around five years old living in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, which is located in the southeastern corner of Wisconsin just on the brink of Chicago, Illinois. It was a place much like any other typical small town you would expect to see in the more southern states. It had such a small town feel, really because that's just what it was, small. It was no surprise to me in that time, that everyone knew just about everyone. And it's not as if the county was that small, people were sincerely invested in being neighbourly. That being said, Kenosha was home of some of the top churches, that people were totally gravitated towards. I suppose television wasn't entirely the in thing to do at that time, in fact considered more of a time waster. Being a five year old with such little knowledge and experience of life, I couldn't comprehend as to why our lives were merely centered around that of worshipping than that of playing pretend, like normal children tended to do while I was counting the heads of people by the row.

There were at least twenty churches within the county limits alone, and probably more exceeding twenty on the boundaries around Kenosha. Many went by the names of Catholic, Baptist, Pentecostal, Lutheran, but ours in particular was called the First Christian Church. Kenosha starting out on the smallish side, the First Christian Church barely made its name known, as it being the only one in our county at the time, it was unkept and what many liked it to be called, unattractive. Due to the fact that Minister, Peter Vaughn, practically built the thing himself, he couldn't cough up the money to pay the finances for the exterior to be maintained, but because his father at the time was in high authority of the county, or something along those lines, he simply struck luck at even being able to keep it running. Though the outside did not appear as much—as the white paint faded from time and was chipped all around, the stained glass windows became wooden boarders, and the picturesque garden wilted from lack of attention—the inside was fairly furnished and made up for the "unattractiveness." Oak wood pews filled the inside, a red carpet extended just long enough to reach the pulpit area, and charming lights dangled down like chandeliers.

My mother was invested, she didn't care what people thought every time she stepped foot into the building, she had made up her mind. And so, despite it being one of the coldest days of the year, or the hottest, my mother forced me out of bed every Sunday. She insisted to dress me in these most ridiculous dresses every single Sunday that was so uncomfortably puffy, I thought I was going to pass out from a heat stroke; I was praying I would anyway. Sadly, it never happened, and I just assumed God was ignoring me because I wasn't exactly concentrating like I was supposed to have been doing. And so, I sat proper and quiet in the hard pew. I sat so that I didn't upset my mother, regardless of my arms either covered in goosebumps or sweat dripping off of every part of my body.

It came to be a sort of tradition for us through the years, as after the painfully long Sunday service, we would go for lunch with another couple from the congregation each week. The part I usually looked the most forward to. On the odd occasion, we would attend lunch with the Minister, Peter Vaughn, who was the only one that, ironically, seemed to be the most enjoyable to be around, especially in comparison to all the other snoozefest lunches I had to attend. My mother didn't approve of doing anything other than worshipping in the "heart of our Christ Jesus" so the only time I got to spend even a little time with Mr. Vaughn was either at the most depressing event, a funeral, or the more happier occasion, a wedding, which in Kenosha County, neither happened as often as you would have expected. Despite such limited association with Peter Vaughn, I grew fond of the way he took a particular interest in me. Peter being seventy-five at this time, I learned much from how wise he actually was and not just appeared to be.

He was pushing forty when he finally got married; his wife being eight years younger and already expecting. She had to endure through four miscarriages until on Peter's fiftieth birthday, he was gifted a healthy girl, Ava Vaughn. Her mother didn't make it past the birth, dying with Ava in her feeble arms. This, of course, made Peter Vaughn a widower, raising Ava on his own. Peter then being fifty-five years old, lost his daughter when an offender was driving under the influence, ending in a tragic car collision, making Ava only five years old on the day of her death. He had much lost in his life, so he turned entirely to his faith, to which was the only thing that kept him going each day. I think mainly our connection was because he always mentioned I was a look-alike of his deceased daughter, that my glossy, straight black hair resembled her perfectly. I felt bad for him in the way he longed for his daughter, it broke my heart that I felt like I had to make it up to him, even though it wasn't really about me. Peter Vaughn suffered from a cruel disease called dementia, and what made things worse about that was, everyone thought he was just getting old and losing his mind, probably because he looked like he could have been serving since the time of Noah and the Ark. He lived a long good life, living as long as he could serving in the congregation, guiding others, until he decided it was time for God to take his life, to which Peter Vaughn took his own.