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NICHOLAS BOOTHMAN
noticed Saint Patrick’s Cathedral at Fifth and Fifty-
First. Its Gothic spires and stunning stained-glass
windows beckoned me to enter. However, as soon
as I walked in, a voice in my head said, ‘No, not
here. This is not for you.' The words were clear and
unmistakable, and I felt a familiar shiver run down
my spine.
I turned around and left, the familiar chill of loss
settling deep. Forty-seven years. That’s how long I’d
thought I’d buried it. The raw, echoing pain of that day
in another church. I’d convinced myself I’d moved on,
healed. But standing there, in the shadow of Saint
Patrick’s soaring arches, it all came flooding back. Was it
the echoing space, the stained light, some faint, lingering
echo of the past? I didn’t know. All I knew was that my
body remembered, even if my mind had tried to forget.
And it was screaming, ‘Get out.’ But even as that primal
urge drove me away, another, stronger force, a pull I
couldn’t explain, drew me further up Fifth Avenue.
Three blocks later, when I stepped through the doors of
Saint Thomas Church, the chaos inside me stilled. A
profound peace settled, a stark contrast to the fear I’d
just fled."
"Where shall I sit?” I whispered to myself. ‘I
know. I’m sixty-two. I’ll sit in pew sixty-two’. I
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