Where does forever go?

I recently came across a piece by my colleague Daniel Nichols, writing for Caelum et Terra, about a large homeschool family whose wife and mother deserted them.

It wasn't hard to figure out to which of our mutual friends he was referring. In fact, I was once very close to this family, until things fell apart. I'd send them presents every Christmas, and even gave the two daughters a little money to help with their Jubilee pilgrimage to Rome. But I also made the mistake of not realizing the limits of friendship, particularly where it concerns those who must ultimately walk alone. And so, for all I know, I have forever lost the affection of a wonderful group of children, for whom I served as a sort of "Dutch uncle." But I am also reminded of something farther in my past...

Once a month, Dad would pack us all into the two-toned Pontiac, to make the drive from Cincinnati to our paternal grandparents' home in Sidney, a town one hundred miles to the north. But first, we had to go through Dayton. One of Mom's cousins had a wife and five kids there. But he was an alcoholic, and one day he just up and left them. Mrs E didn't see fit to work outside the home and leave her children, so she settled for public assistance and the charity of others. Somehow she kept things going with those children in that big house just off the freeway. So Dad took it upon himself for us to stop there regularly, with a big box of household items -- mostly Procter and Gamble products, as he had access to promotional samples as part of his job at the time -- to help the family out. They in turn would give us toys they no longer needed. This struck me as a great deal all around. What's more, the family showed no signs of being "white trash;" the house was always clean, if a bit spartan, and the children always happy and well-behaved.

In later years, our visits stopped. I was never sure why. But after awhile, Mrs E remarried. Her new life gave her occasion to pass through the area around Milford, the town outside Cincinnati where I grew up. But even as Dad's condition got worse, she never stopped by to say hello. Dad did get visits from Mr E, though, and would hear of the man's attempts to reconcile with his children. Dad would also hear him wonder out loud why they wanted nothing to do with him. Eventually he passed away. At the funeral Mass, a lone red-haired woman could be seen in the back pews -- his only daughter.

When I asked him about it, Dad never regretted helping the E family. It was the right thing to do, and he never expected to get anything back anyway, and so it was...

And today, so it is. I may never learn what becomes of the family I once knew. But should they ever visit the Nation's capital, they will find an open door, and a place to rest their head. Still, I can't imagine it being reciprocated.

Then again, I've been wrong about them before.