The ConfessionFor three days, a fierce winter storm had traveled 1,500 miles across the North Pacific from Alaska, packing gale-force winds and torrential rains. In the foothills of the Sierras in the town of Grass Valley, California, the streets were flooded, and in some parts of town, the power was off where trees had fallen. At the small church in the town, the heavy rain and high winds lashed against the windows with renewed violence.
In the tiny bedroom upstairs, Father O'Malley was writing his sermon by candlelight when the phone rang. As he picked up the phone, a hurried voice asked, "Is this Father O'Malley?"
"Yes," the priest replied.
"I'm calling from the hospital in Auburn. We have a terminally ill patient who is asking us to get someone to give him his last rites. Can you come quickly?"
"I'll try my best," the priest said. "But the river has flooded its banks, and the trees have fallen all over town. It's the worst storm I've ever seen, but I'll be there in two hours."
The priest made his way out to his 20-year-old car behind the church, and started a long hard drive to the hospital. Not a single vehicle was out and about at this late hour, and he made slow but steady progress towards the hospital.
I hope I'm not too late.
With his tattered Bible tucked deep in his overcoat pocket, O'Malley pushed the door of the hospital open.
"I'm so glad you came," the night nurse greeted him. "The man I called you about is slipping away fast. He's been an alcoholic for years, and his liver has given up on him. In all the time he's been here, he hasn't had a single visitor. No one knows who he is; he doesn't seem to want to talk much. We've been treating him on and off for the last few years, but this time it seems as if he's just given up the fight."
"What's his name?"
"The staff just call him Tom."
In the soft night-light of the room, Tom looked as if he had already stepped over the threshold of death.
"Hello, Tom. I'm Father O'Malley, and I was just passing by. I thought we could talk a bit before you go to sleep for the night."
"Don't give me that garbage," came the fast reply. "You didn't just stop by at 3.30 in the morning. I asked that dumb nurse to get someone to give me my last rites because I know it's my turn to go. Now get on with it."
"Patience," said the priest, and began to say the prayers for Tom.
After the "Amen" had been pronounced, Tom perked up a little and seemed to want to talk.
"Would you like to make your confession?" the priest asked.
"Absolutely not. But I would like to just talk a little before I go."
So the two sat there and talked about the Korean War, and the storm, and the grass and flowers that would soon follow. Occasionally O'Malley would ask Tom again if he wanted to confess, but he always got a refusal.
After a couple of hours, Father O'Malley asked the same question for the fifth time. Then Tom replied, "Father, when I was young I did something that was so bad I never told anyone about it. It was so bad I haven't spent a single day since without thinking about it and reliving the horror."
"Don't you think it would be good to tell me about it?"
"Even now, I still can't bear to talk about it," Tom whispered sadly.
"Even to you."
But then the first shafts of early morning sunlight shone into the room and threw gentle shadows about the floor. Tom watched the radiance of the morning dawn, and then looked at the priest.
"It's too late for anyone to do anything to me now, so I guess I might as well tell you."
"I worked as a switchman on the railroad all my life, until I retired a few years ago and moved up here to the woods. Thirty-two years, two months and 11 days ago, I was working in Bakersfield on a night kind of like tonight."
His face became intense as the words rushed out.
"It happened during a bad winter storm with lots of rain, strong winds, and almost no visibility. It was two nights before Christmas and to push away the gloom, the whole yard crew drank all through the shift. I was drunker than the rest of them, and I volunteered to go out into the wind and rain and push the switch for the northbound 8:30am freight."
Then the haggard face creased into pain, and tears began to roll unchecked down his sallow cheeks.
"I guess I was more drunk than I thought I was, because I pushed that switch in the wrong direction. At 45 miles an hour, that freight train slammed into a passenger car at the crossing and killed a young man, his wife, and their two daughters."
"I have had to live with my being the cause of their deaths every day since then."
There was a long moment of silence as the full weight of that confession hung in the air. Yet after what seemed like an eternity, Father O'Malley gently put his hand on Tom's shoulder and said only this:
"If God can forgive you, then so can I, because in that car that very night were my mother, my father, and my two older sisters."
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