A Labor Of Love
She wasted no time in letting her son know just how special
he was to her. In her mind and heart, he was not like other children. “You are
destined for something, something great,” she would tell her son.
When her son was born he was given the nickname ‘Staush’ by
his Father and the name stuck with him throughout his life. It was an
affectionate name that reminded him of his parents' love for him.
On Christmas morning, when he was seven years old, his
mother gave him a painting. It was a painting of a beautiful female Angel with
deep blue eyes and a gentle angelic face. “This is the Angel that is watching
over you,” his mother told him, “the Angel is watching over you because you have
a special mission in life. You only have to believe in your Angel, and
everything will be alright.” He believed his mother because he had no reason to
doubt her.
He also had fond memories of his Father taking him fishing.
“You catch more fish than me,”
his father said to him, “why is that?”
“Don’t know,” he replied.
“The fish must like you,” his
father said.
His father always returned the fish he caught to the water.
“Why do you put the fish back,”
he asked his father.
“Because I like the Fish,” came
the reply.
He often told the story of how his world changed when he was
nine years old. It changed tragically for him and his Mother, and it was due to
his father’s unexpected death. “His heart,” said the Doctor in Polish to his
distraught Mother as she wept and sobbed, “no one
knew about his heart,” the doctor said to her once again.
His father was laid out in their living room, and he can
remember the villagers coming to their home with food. “He was a good man,”
said the Priest as he placed his hand on the dead man’s head. The Priest’s tone
of voice lacked the sincerity needed to console his Mother’s grief.
He never forgot his Father’s burial and the number of people
that came to the cemetery because they too loved his father. His Mother’s
brother stood next to them as his Father’s casket was lowered into the ground.
His Uncle stayed with them for a few months. He helped his
sister convert the front part of their home into a bakery shop.
“I wish my Father was here to see
what we did to the house,” he told his uncle, “why did he have to die?”
“His heart had so much love that
it put a strain on his physical heart,” his uncle told him, “he loved immensely,
and that love is always with you. Your Father will always be with you - in
spirit. When you talk to him, he will hear you.” As a young child, he accepted
his uncle’s explanation after all the doctor told them that his father's heart had
stopped beating.
His mother baked and sold various pastries and bread to the
villagers. His uncle attracted people to the shop by playing a small mandolin
and singing songs. Staush was fascinated by his uncle’s talent and beautiful
voice. His uncle eventually taught him the same songs and how to play the
mandolin.
One night his Uncle came to him, letting him know that he
had to return to his own home. “I will be back to visit my favorite Nephew,” he
told him. Before his uncle left, he placed the mandolin on their kitchen table.
“Did he leave it for me?” Staush
asked his Mother excitedly.
“I suppose so,” said his Mother,
“he must love you very much because you know how your uncle loves that
mandolin.”
The bakery shop paid off, sustaining them financially. As
his Mother baked throughout the day, she listened to her son play the Mandolin
to his heart’s content. He also sang the songs his uncle taught him.
As a child, he took his time learning the Baker’s trade and
the art of entertaining customers. However, this period in their life was
short-lived because a flu epidemic hit Poland when he was eleven years old. He
watched his Mother lying in bed pale and weak.
“Don’t die, momma,” he said to
her in Polish, “I don’t want to be left here alone.”
“You are never alone, Staush.”
“Please don’t go,” he said with
tears rolling down his face.
“An angel is watching over you,”
she told him once again in a weak, frail voice, “you are a great person destined
for great things. You just have to believe in your angel, and everything will
be alright.”
“I don’t want to be here alone,”
he repeated.
“Trust and believe what I tell
you,” she told him slowly, “great things will become of you.”
She held his hand, “You will never be alone,” she said in a
slow whisper, “Your Angel and I will always watch over you.”
He laid his head down on his Mother’s chest as he wept. He
felt the life within slowly leave her body. He cried until he could cry no
more. The pain of his Mother’s passing consumed him. He was now an orphan, and
he was sent where orphans are sent.
The orphanage was very large and old and the building housed
approximately four hundred children. It was located on a large hill roughly a
mile from where he lived with his parents. There was a section for boys and a
section for girls, and they slept in large dormitories. The only time the boys
and girls commingled was in three large eating areas on the ground floor.
During the day, they went to school on the second floor, where they learned to
read and write. The girls stayed with the girls, and the boys stayed with the
boys.
The orphans were also assigned chores, and Staush was
assigned to the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” the cook
asked him as he smacked him in the back of the head.
“I am spicing up the food,” he
said, “it tastes like dry wood.”
“So you are a food critic?” the
cook asked, “I cook for over four hundred people, little people, with no homes,
no families. This is no restaurant, and I am no chef.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean you
can’t spice the food up a bit.”
“What do you know about spices
and cooking? You homeless child,” the cook asked.
“I wasn’t always homeless; my
Mother and I owned a bakery before she died.”
“Well, then show me how you can
cook for four hundred people and still find the time to spice up the food.”
Each day Staush went to work, the food never tasted better.
In the evening, he played his mandolin and sang songs. The girls heard his
voice through the dorm's open windows, and many of them assumed they were
listening to a phonograph playing in one of the boy’s dorms.
The more he played his mandolin, the better he got, and the
more he sang his songs, the better his voice got. To keep his mind occupied, he
wrote down some words that sounded good with his improvised mandolin chords
without realizing he was writing new and original songs.
He also read books at night, and he enjoyed reading. But
something was lacking in his life. He was lonely; he felt as if he was all
alone and unloved. He felt forgotten by the people in his village.
At times he was picked on and bullied by the older kids. He
was just unhappy and depressed most of the time. He missed his mother and
father. He missed the village where he grew up, and the happy times working in
the Bakery Shop. He kept a small black and white photograph of his parents. In
the photo, his mother held him when he was just a baby. He kept the picture
under his pillow at night to keep them close.
In his melancholy nights when he felt alone and depressed,
he would be reminded by his Mothers memories that a special Angel is watching
over him, guiding him along in life. The thought of that Angel gave him the
strength to continue. With the hope of a better future filled with love and
companionship.
He was surprised one afternoon when his Uncle returned. It
was shortly after he turned thirteen. “I kept your Mandolin,” he told his
Uncle.
“That is your Mandolin,” his
Uncle replied, “you play it much better than me.
His Uncle took his favorite nephew back home to the Bakery
Shop, and they made a fresh start at their business. Once again, they were
successful, and Staush enjoyed entertaining the customers to his delight. He
seemed happy most of the time, but he never forgot his experiences at the
orphanage.
At the age of twenty-five, he began to market his success
and eventually owned five other bakery shops in the surrounding villages. He
hired others to run them, but he visited the Shops often. He made sure that the
products were baked and sold to his specifications so that the quality can
never be lost.
“So, what is your secret,
Staush?” A female customer asked, “why is it that everything you bake tastes
better than what the other shops bake? What is your secret recipe?”
“I have no secret recipes,” he
said, “everything I bake is a labor of love. I put in a dash of this and a dash
of that, and I just whip them together as I go along. The things I bake are
guided along with the ingredients, and I add the ingredients at the appropriate
time.”
“Well, you have to have some kind
of recipe,” she said.
“I follow my gut and heart when I
bake,” he said, “no secret recipes needed, and besides, I never wrote anything
down. I just add what needs to be added at the right time in my baking process.
It is simply my labor of love, and it is my way of reaching out and connecting
with my customers. When my customers are happy, I am happy.”
“Well, I am a happy customer
Staush,” she said, “I don’t know what your secret is, but I will keep coming
back.”
“My secret is this,” he said, “I
don’t rush the baking process. I take my good old time. I make sure what I bake
is just right because it is my labor of love,” he said once again, “I give a
part of myself to my customers when I bake for them.”
When he was twenty-seven, he looked at the abundance he had gained
in life through his success as a baker. But something was still lacking in his
life.
He found himself thinking, more and more, about his
experiences at the orphanage. He was constantly being reminded about the
unhappiness he felt in that lonely place.
“The children,” he thought to
himself, “the ones who are living at the orphanage now, perhaps I could make
their lives a little better.”
He knew he could not change his past, but perhaps there was
a way he could make the children's lives a little better. Baking, playing the
mandolin, and singing were his ways of reaching out and connecting with others.
“I will share my gifts and
talents,” he said out loud as he was making a loaf of bread for a particular
order, “with the children,” he said once again.
He hired more bakers’ helpers, and they baked throughout the
night. Early in the morning, they loaded the horse-drawn carriages from his
five bakeries with small loaves of bread. They then delivered the bread through
the orphanage’s back kitchen entrance. They placed the small loaves of bread
next to the children’s beds as they slept.
He continued this routine every night. He also would stop by
the orphanage in the late afternoon or early evening, play the mandolin, and
sing them songs. The children grew to love Staush as he entertained them and
baked for them.
He told them stories that reminded them of how special they were
and how an Angel was watching over them.
“The Angel,” he said, “is placing
small loaves of bread next to your beds at night. She does this so that you
never go hungry because you all have an extraordinary mission in life.”
“An Angel,” said a suppressed
little girl.
“Yes,” said Staush, “a very
special Angel. You are all loved and carried for. You only have to believe in
your Angel, and everything will be alright.”
The children looked forward to his daily visits, and Staush
grew more and more attached to the Children. He told them stories that made
them laugh and smile. He wrote songs that corresponded with stories he told,
and the children loved singing along with him. Their faces would beam and light
up every time he entered a room. They would then run up to him so they could be
close to him. The children pulled on his heartstrings, and he loved the
children.
When Staush reached the age of thirty-one, the Nazis invaded
Poland, and the Village where he was living became occupied by German soldiers.
Many high-ranking Nazi officers took over people's homes. Staush was forced to
bake and cook for the German Soldiers.
In December of 1940, he learned that the Nazi Hierarchy would
move the Children from the orphanage and take over their building. But he was
unable to learn where the children were going. He did not trust the Nazis, and
he knew in his gut that the children would most likely be abused or killed
outright, and he could not let that happen.
He went door to door and talked to everyone he met, and he
told them about the fate of the children.
“What can I possibly do?” said an
elderly gentleman, “I am a poor man with minimal means to support myself, let
alone a child.”
“All the child needs right now is
a roof over its head,” Staush told him, “right now, your decision will
determine whether a child lives or dies.”
The old gentleman stared at him, “and if this child is
caught in my home, what is to become of me?” he asked Staush.
“You lived your life, old man,
let this child have a chance at life,” he told him.
“I suppose I could give him
chores to do around the property,” he said to Staush.
He jotted down names and addresses as he spoke to various
people as if taking bakery orders.
“If you get caught,” his Uncle
told him, “the Nazis will kill you.”
“This is something I have to do,
Uncle,” Staush said, “I could never live with myself knowing I sat by and did
nothing to help them.”
On Christmas Eve, horse-drawn Carriages from all five
bakeries pulled up to the orphanage’s back kitchen entrance. They began
secretly putting the children in the carriages and covered them up with
canopies. They made ten trips that evening, dropping children off at various
homes throughout the surrounding villages. Some families took in more than one
child.
He and his baker’s helpers had many close calls with the
Nazi patrols that night.
“Let me see your papers,” said
the Nazi patrol officer in German, but Staush nor his helper could speak a word
of German. They routinely handed over their papers that provided the Nazis with
their name, address, and occupation. Staush then handed the two German officers
two small loaves of bread. He told them in Polish with a big happy smile on his
face, “shove this where the sun doesn’t shine,” the two German soldiers not
understanding a word of Polish graciously took the bread from his hand. They
went through that routine more than once that Christmas Eve, and by early
Christmas morning, every child had a new home and a family to watch over them.
It wasn’t long before the Nazis discovered that Staush and
seven coconspirators were behind the disappearance of four hundred children.
They were quickly arrested and placed in a concentration camp. The only thing
that saved their lives was their trade, but their baking skills were never
utilized.
He soon realized that his fate was most likely to die in
that camp. The winters were brutal due to the bunks being unheated. The food
rations were meager, a little water and some bread in the morning, and that was
it. The prisoners would pull the clothes off of dead bodies to give themselves
extra layers to stay warm.
It wasn’t long before Staush’s well-nourished frame took on
that of the other prisoners, the skin and bones of the malnourished, the living
skeletons, and the walking dead.
He soon discovered that some male prisoners would crawl
under the bunkhouses towards the women’s bunks and lay with the woman at night.
They did this to share the warmth of their body heat. One night he followed
their lead, and he too crawled into a woman’s bunk bed.
When the sun rose in the morning, he gazed at the woman’s face
and into her eyes. Her face took on the characteristics of the painting that
his mother gave him when he was a child. She had the same deep blue eyes of the
Angel in the painting and a gentle angelic face. Every night he laid with her,
“we are going to live,” he said, “we will not die here.” That woman gave him
the will and purpose to live.
“What is the purpose of all
this,” she asked him.
“Sometimes my Angel plays hide
and seek,” he said, “when I think I am all alone in the world, others come into
my life. My Angel guides them, like you, and she brings them into my life. We
need each other now, and we will live because goodness always triumphs over
evil.”
One summer, he noticed a young boy coming towards his
bunkhouse. He quickly realized that it was one of the boys that he helped
escape from the orphanage. He learned that a Jewish family took in the young boy,
and being mistaken for a Jew, he shared his adopted family’s fate. The young
boy found some comfort when he discovered that Staush would be there with him.
“Don’t worry,” he said to the
boy, “we will get through this.”
“I know,” the boy said.
He tried to find the strength and the will to help the boy
by engaging him in conversation. Staush’s health was failing though he was
frail and very weak. Each day more and more people were dying from hunger and
starvation. He was too weak to leave his bunk bed, and one morning he heard the
voice of the young boy speaking to him up close in his ear. “Staush,” the young
boy said.
He slowly opened his eyes and saw a small piece of bread
next to his bed. “An Angel placed it here because she wants you to live,” the
young boy said with tears rolling down his face, “you have to complete your
important mission in life,” said the boy as he handed him the piece of bread.
Slowly Staush ate it and drank a little water.
He lived to see Poland liberated from the Nazis by the
Russian troops. The Russians released the prisoners, and he and his young
friend survived. The woman who shared her body heat during those brutal winter
months also survived the inhumanity.
He adopted the young boy from the camp and gave him a home.
The woman with the deep blue eyes and the Angelic face soon became his wife.
The Russians, after the war, took over Poland, and their country became part of
the Soviet Union. The soviets had a brutal side to them as well. Life at the
hands of the Soviets was both cruel and harsh. But Staush went on baking well
into his eighties. He and his wife had four children after the war. His
granddaughter is now running the Bakery Shops.
He lived to see the fall of the Soviet Union, and when he
was eighty-two years old, an unexpected visitor came to the Bakery Shop. That
unexpected visitor was Poland’s Prime Minister. He came to let Staush and his
family know that their Government was converting the Old Orphanage into a
School for the performing arts, and the School was going to be named after ‘Staush’
the Baker.
“That is nice. I can play my
mandolin and sing there once again,” he told the Prime Minister, “I would like
to perform there for the students and tell them about how the Angel helped the
children and me during the war. My wife and my adopted son also survived the
war.”
Shortly after the school opened, he played his mandolin and
sang a few songs for the students. While he was performing, another unexpected
visitor came to the school. That unexpected visitor was the Polish Pope, John
Paul II. While the Pope was looking over the school, one of the students had
the painting that was given to Staush by his Mother. The painting of the Angel
was placed on the wall in the school’s Dinning area. The student also put a
picture of Staush with Poland’s Prime Minister on the wall near the school’s
main entrance.
“Well,” Staush said to the young
student, “we are going to have to find a place to put a picture of me with the
Pope.”
“I don’t think that will be a
problem,” the young student said as the sound of camera shutters and flashing
camera lights went off around them.
“I wish there was a way I could
get a picture of me with my special Angel,” Staush said to the Pope.
“That would be nice,” the Pope
said to him in Polish, “from what I hear, you have a remarkable way with
children.”
“Well, when you enjoy the company
of others, others enjoy your company,” Staush said, “it’s not rocket science or
theology, it is merely being completely there for them.”
“You would have made a great
Priest,” the Pope said
“I think my wife would disagree,”
he said, “you are a great man and a great Pope. But I am not a religious man,
and I have a deep spirituality, and I do my best to let it guide me. My Mother,
when she was alive, told me an Angel was watching over me, and to this day, I
believe her. My mission in life was helping the children, and I am still being
guided along on my life’s mission.”
“I wish my Priests had that same
faith and certitude that you have,” the Pope said, “we would have a much
stronger church.”
“I believe my life’s mission is
simply to love and to be loved,” said Staush.
“I too believe that,” the Pope
said to him, “and from what I see, you are truly loved.”
“Angels at times will help us
along by guiding others toward us,” Staush said, “they guide others toward us
because we are sharing the same path in life. We are never alone in the world;
we may feel alone at times. We may feel as if we came into the world set apart
from others, but humanity is intimately part of us. In times of need, humanity
becomes our greatest resource. If we could accept the fact that we are all here
for one simple reason, and that is to love and to be loved, the world would be
a much better place.”
“Yes, it would be a better
place,” the Pope said, “and from what I see here, you are helping your corner
of the world become a better place.”
“I met my wife in a great time of
need,” he told the Pope, “without her I would never have survived the
concentration camp. My adopted son came to me in a great time of need, and
without him, I would have died in that camp. I believe an Angel put them on my
path so that we can share that path in life, so that we could be there,
completely there, for each other.”
“You are a good and kind man,”
the Pope said, “you are also a man of great faith. The students are blessed to
be in a school named after you. They are especially blessed to have met you in
person. I am glad I met you as well.”
He lived to be eighty-nine years old and toward the end of
his life. He became frail in body, but he was still strong in mind and spirit.
His eyesight and hearing began to fail him, but he could still play his
mandolin and sing his songs. But most of all he maintained a great love and
affection for his family, community, and the students at the school.
His Mother was correct when she told him that he was
destined for great things because his destiny was rooted in his kind actions.
He also overcame the obstacles in life by simply believing that a special Angel
was watching over him. She guided him along so that “I could complete my life’s
mission which is to love and to be loved.”
He could not believe the attention and affection shown
towards him in his old age.
“We all have the capacity,” he
said to the students, “to do the right thing when the right thing needs to be
done. Draw on what you know in your heart to be true, at that spontaneous
moment in time. When the right thing is called upon, follow through with it,
simply do it.”
“Why couldn’t the Nazis do that?”
a young girl asked him.
“The Nazis, believe it or not,”
he said, “had in their hearts compassion, love, and kindness, but they ignored
their heart and soul. They suppressed their own humanity, but we can now learn
from their inhumanity and atrocities. We now know what not to do, and we must
never allow such atrocities to occur again.”
“Why is it that you survived and
so many others died?” another female student asked him, “was it an Angel? If it
was, why then didn’t the Angel save the others as well?”
“I don’t have those answers,” he
said, “for me, I simply followed my instinct, my intuition, the small still
whisper within. I was guided along on my life’s path.”
“Why you?” a male student asked,
“what did you have that caused you to overcome and survive?”
“Why there weren’t more
survivors,” he said, “I do not know, and that has bothered me for many years.
Perhaps the Angel my Mother spoke of in my childhood helped me. But for those
of you who do not believe in angels. The capacity for kindness, compassion, and
love is an intimate part of our humanity.”
“A lot of good and caring people
died,” a young female student said.
“Yes, I know,” he said, “perhaps,
I survived because I reached out to others and others reached out to me. In the
end, the inhumanity surrendered to our humanity.”
“Do you believe in survival of
the fittest?” A female student asked.
“Yes, of course, I do,” he said,
“we see it in nature, and we see it around us. But the Nazis took that theory
to an extreme. We must always understand that our humanity is an intimate part
of who we are as human beings. Throughout history, madness and insane regimes
have terrorized good and innocent people. But in the end, our humanity and
goodness triumph over evil. Perhaps that knowledge and understanding helped me
overcome the nightmare.”
“So you were more fit
psychologically,” the young female student asked.
“Well, let me put it this way,”
he said to the students, “I knew the Nazi regime would soon come to an end. It
had to end because, throughout history, the tyrants were destroyed. They were
destroyed because they were tyrants. They are internally weak unstable, and
they crumble in the end. Our capacity to love, care, and our ability to reach
out to those of the least influence are what keeps humanity strong. That is why
I believe in the survival of the fittest. My wife and an adopted son I met in
the concentration camp also gave me the will to survive. I had something to
hope for but most of all to live for.”
“You are a great man,” said a
young girl.
“We are all great in our own
way,” he told her, “you just have to believe in your greatness and live up to
what you know in your heart to be true.”
“Play your Mandolin,” said a
little girl as she placed her arms on his lap.
The music filled the room as the students smiled and sang
along with him. Every Wednesday up to his eighty-ninth year, he met with the
students to play his mandolin, sing his songs, and tell his stories. He enjoyed
their company, and in turn, they looked forward to his company.
He cherished the attention and affection that the students,
his family, and the community have shown towards him. He, in turn, returned
that affection in greater fold. The reason being, as he eloquently told the
Pope, “my mission in life is simply to love and to be loved.”
Always with love from Suzhou, China
Thomas F O'Neill
Email: introspective7@hotmail.com
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posted by Thomas F. O'Neill | 10:46 AM
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