It was the end of a long day in which 30 public school children had been merged with the Catholic school class of 53 pupils for First Communion practice after the regular school day.

As silence settled on the empty classroom, I wanted to put my head on the desk and sleep until morning (well, at least for ten minutes).

Then, an apologetic knock on the door was followed by the entrance of Tom Greene (not his real name), a tall, thin, black man, looking more weary than I could possibly feel. In a second, I was on my feet to extend a hand to this fellow traveler, whom I had never met, but was sure was Ruth Ann’s father -- her real name -- my name, too.

You will have to pardon that touch of pride, as though I had had something to do with her naming or her rearing. No. But I dearly loved that child, and sharing my name with her was a gift to me.

On Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings, she would skip into the room as though Catechism class were the highlight of her days. Her dark eyes sparkled, and her smile promised that the hour would be a happy time, for she would help to make it so.

As I looked at the father that afternoon, I could not help but wonder how such a lively child could be related to one worn down and out, with tears in his eyes, possibly from the stress of coming to explain to a white teacher why he wouldn’t be able to receive Holy Communion with his child on her special day, and to ask if, somehow, I could figure out a way to make that possible.

The problem, he explained, was that the only job he could handle, since he wasn’t good at either reading or writing, was janitor work in a local tavern, janitor work every Sunday morning. I was so relieved that it wasn’t something like a third marriage or a drinking problem, I almost smiled, but kept in the spirit of the serious moment.

This was big-time, calling for special shepherding. Shepherds who specialized in matters of the soul and heart, rather than laws and penalties, were not plentiful in my parish, but there was one two parishes over whom I always kept for emergencies. Father Bill had a gentle heart and a hard head for common sense.

When I explained the problem over the office phone, even though the dinner hour was approaching, he told me to send the gentleman over immediately, and they would figure out something together.

Later, that evening, the priest called to say that from then on, Wednesday would be Tom’s Sunday for Mass at Father Bill’s parish, and everything was ship-shape.

It was sort of like a pastoral painting, the father’s rearing this impossibly beautiful child, and the priest’s lifting him up so that he could continue to do so for years to come. I went to bed with a special feeling of peace that night. In my small corner of the universe, everything was right indeed.

When it came time to discussing the Our Father in class, Ruth Ann had no problem relating ways fathers take care of their children. They teach them to ride bikes. They take them to the store for ice-cream. They buy medicine when children are sick. They are good to mothers. Fine theology for a six-year old.

Another child of that age may know every word of the traditional prayer, but may never have experienced the real love of a father, and may not be able to pray the words with trust until years later, when he or she has experienced caring and love, day in and day out.

With that in mind, I used to ask the children to name men in their lives who were like fathers to them. Some spoke of big brothers, uncles, grandfathers and neighbors, those who loved them and would protect them from harm.

That year, First Communion Day broke forth in a poem of sunshine, and Ruth Ann looked like a black version of Shirley Temple, eyes dancing with little-girl excitement, dressed in white from her veil to her t-strapped slippers.

And her parents, in the sea of white parents with their relatives, seemed peacefully and happily at home in the church where their child was loved and accepted by her classmates, and where her father had found a way to live outside the box of laws.

Years later, I returned to the same city to teach English in the high school, and on my first day in a senior class, I looked down the row to find a grown-up Ruth Ann. We hugged, and I had a hard time keeping back the tears. Although she was the only black girl in her class and in the school, she had been elected president, and carried out her duties with enthusiasm and poise, whether dealing with students or faculty.

I was so proud of her, and have never forgotten the child whose father placed her in the Catholic school when she was in third grade, saw her through high school, then rejoiced over her receiving a full four-year scholarship to a Catholic college.

One day, toward the end of the year, we spoke of her approaching college years, and I noticed a wistfulness I had never seen before. She said she had always been the only black child in her school years, and there were few black students in the college she would be attending. Yet, she admitted, it was an excellent school and would prepare her well for the working world. The ache to be with her own was something she would have to live with.

This is Ruth Ann’s story, but it is even more so the story of a father who was determined to care for his child and to share the faith that would see her through the highs and lows of a black child in a white world.

My best wishes and prayers go with this for all our fathers -- those who shepherd in the priesthood, or in married life, or as single men, caring for the young and the old, making their way toward home. Happy, blessed Father’s Day to all!

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