Saint.(Kevin Hughes) Author's Note: This is my third Christmas Story. Although I listed it as Fiction, I believe that people like this exist. In fact, I know of at least three women and one man... who would recognize themselves in this story. I hope you know someone who does too. Merry Christmas.

*****

“How long has she been dead?”

A shrug from the other Officer…and a guess.

“Maybe two days, three on the outside.”

“That can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I am no Doctor, or Coroner, but there are no signs of Mortis.”

“What? You mean Rigor Mortis?”

“No that would just be the first sign. And she is not stiff.”

It was at that moment that the Coroner arrived. He was waved right in by the two Officers.

“Oh. Dear. Oh…my. OH. MY. GOD.”

Once again it was the clueless Officer who spoke up:

“I am glad you are here Doc. I think she (pointing to the withered frail old lady laying peacefully in the bed) has been dead for two or three days. Officer Kelly over there- she says that isn’t possible because she’s not stiff.”

The Coroner looked over at the Officer.

“She’s correct.”

He shivered as he touched the body. His natural instincts as a Professor and Teacher took over. As he began his examination of the deceased, the words just poured out:

“There is no rigor mortis. Normally, within a few hours the body will stiffen, become rigid as muscles tighten due to chemical changes in the tissue. It lets us know an approximate time of death…and if the body has been moved or tampered with. And this corpse is still supple.”

His voice quivered a bit as he put his gloves on to turn the body onto its side. He couldn’t help it. He let out a squeal of surprise and the body fell lightly onto its back again.

“Jesus. There is no sign of liver mortis. That is when the blood pools because of gravity. Nor is there any sign of Algor Mortis where the body cools down to the Ambient air temperature. So the normal stages of determining time of death…are …are…useless.”

Officer Kelly just nodded her head at the Coroner. Her eyes were wide. She had reached the same conclusion within moments of finding the body. She wasn’t a Medical Doctor, but she had been on the Force a long time. Long enough to know whatever this body was, it wasn’t dead. Maybe.

The Clueless Officer was starting to get a clue.

“You mean…she ain’t dead?”

The Coroner shook his head as he stared at the Officer.

“No Officer. She’s dead alright. No heartbeat, no respiration, no sounds or signs of digestion. She should be cold. She is not. She should be stiff, she is not. She should be bruised. She is not. She’s just dead.”

“Maybe its a coma?”

“No. She’s dead.”

The Coroner sat down heavily in a chair. His head held up by both his hands covering his face. Officer Kelly went over and laid a gentle hand on one shoulder. Partly to offer support, partly to get some support. The room was quiet. Until the clueless Officer spoke up:

“So what do you call her, if she isn’t a corpse?”

The Coroner looked up through eyes still in shock.

“I don’t know what you call her. I know what I would call her.”

“What?”

“A Saint.”

*****

The old frail body lay encased in a glass sarcophagus. They had to literally enshrine the whole house. Most of the thousands of visitors a day went to the bedroom first, and then respectfully down the stairs to the Living Room where the body was resting in its glass coffin. Only a velvet rope keeping people a few feet from her bier. Nobody ever tried to get any closer.

Many miracles had been ascribed to her since her “death”. Every moment of her life had been documented…extraordinary only in its ordinariness. A woman who had become a teacher, never married, lived alone, and had one love, the children she taught. She may have been unremarkable, but the stories from the kids lucky enough to be taught by her littered every room in her house. Letters, cards, photographs, thank you Notes, Wedding invitations, confessions of all types, and shared grief at loss, divorce, or tragedy …those were legion. She may have been unremarkable, until you listen to the remarks.

“She taught me in second grade. I had no lunch money. I had no lunch. When she figured out my Mom wasn’t feeding me, and couldn’t afford lunch money…she made me sit and help her during lunch every day. She fed me her sandwich and some cookies and milk. When I went home from School every day, in my backpack she put food for my Mom and I to have supper. She never said a word.“

“When my Dad and Sister were killed in a car wreck. She came over every day to check on my Mom and me. Sometimes she would cook. Sometimes she would clean. Sometimes she would hold my Mother, or myself when grief surged to the surface. I never got a chance to thank her.”

“When I got held back in second grade, she took me under her wing. When I got held back in Fourth Grade, she helped tutor me. When I was going to drop out of High School, she let me stay in her guest bedroom for two years. She called in a favor from a former Student. I got into a small college. Then Medical School. She never stopped believing in me.”

“She was the first person I came out to. She made me laugh. I asked her if I could tell her something I had never told anyone…she had to promise not to tell anyone else. She agreed. “I’m Gay.” I said. She hugged me and whispered back: “I am right handed.” I laughed then asked her what she meant. “It’s just part of who I am, just like you being Gay. No reason to be ashamed of afraid. It is just a part of who you are. Like being Right handed.” I miss her. “

“She gave her car to my Mother. She said she could walk to school and the grocery store, so she didn’t really need it all that much. My Mom used that car to start her business. When my Mother became successful she tried to give her a new Mercedes. She refused. “Just give it to someone who needs it. So Mom Did.”

“She bought me my first guitar. And my second when I got good. And she put me in touch with one of her other former Students who did Art Work. She designed my first Album. She told me that Art was its own teacher, and as long as I could read and write and do basic Math, well then, school wasn’t where the magic was. So I followed my dream and not a curriculum. I thank her on every album.”

Drawings from her students, their children, and their children’s children adorned every open space in her house. She was loved by so many for so long, that it could be taken for granted …but wasn’t. The house, shrine, tomb, or resting place, whatever you chose to call it, was closed only once a year. The house was closed on the Anniversary of her being found by the Two Officers and the Coroner. Every year until his Death at eighty seven, the Coroner would meet with the two Officers and they would sit quietly next to the glass coffin.

Sometimes they would talk about her, or all the “miracles” besides the one they were sitting next to, ascribed to her. Sometimes they would catch up on each others lives. Sometimes, they would kneel together, hold hands and pray. Now the two Officers themselves, no longer in their late twenties, but closer to their late seventies, would meet and tell stories about the Coroner, or their own lives, since the routine call to check on an elderly lady. Oh they knew her name. They had read all the books and smiled. They were there. They didn’t need a book or opinion. They didn’t need to join the debate on who, or what, she was. They knew.

They called her by both name and occupation.

Saint.

---