Sorrow-Eater (Babcock)

During these pandemic days, I find my morning walks essential. I savor the summertime fauna and flora; the endlessly shifting sky; ponder writing ideas; and silently converse with an enigmatic Divine I yearn to know better. It is also the only place I encounter my fellow human beings unconcealed by masks. I make a point of smiling and saying hi to everyone I pass. The cheerful ones buoy me up, especially those who are walking dogs which always seem to be smiling. But the sorrowful folks I encounter - those who stare straight ahead their faces laden with fear and sadness - drag me down to the deepest lows. Especially since sorrow has always been my lodestone. And my albatross.

Since I was five years old, I have been irresistibly drawn to sad people. I vividly remember the first time it happened. I was alone, playing in the front yard when a woman walked by. I had never seen her before, she said not a word but looked straight ahead as she passed me. Yet I was forcefully drawn to her face which was so unbearably sad that she looked near to weeping. Within the time that it took for her to walk by, I followed her with my eyes as my mind worked out an entire tragic story of her loneliness, even imagining her empty, dark house. I was so distressed that, in tears, I ran to my mother and told her about the sad lady and her life. Mom hugged me and said, “Oh honey, maybe she is just having a bad day.” But I argued with her, I knew this woman’s abject misery to be true. I could not be comforted.

Since then, I have perceived countless sad people who have drawn me to them with overwhelming force: in the grocery store, in a crowded mall, sitting in a parked car, passing by my house, in a restaurant, in an elevator, even in a roomful of fellow writers. Although they often fail to notice me, I feel complete connectedness to them. Oftentimes, their sorrow is so palpable it hits me like a wave, and I must suppress an audible sob while my eyes well with tears. If I do catch their eye, I smile. Sometimes they sadly smile back, and I feel that I’ve given them a nudge of encouragement. Yet other times I get no response. The worst part is that I am never able to approach them. Some unknown hand holds me back, which makes me feel craven and useless. These moments are unbearably distressing, as I carry that sad face with me for hours or days. Sometimes forever.

Now, during these pandemic days of overwhelming sorrow and fear, I am overloaded. What do I do with this uncanny scourge/gift of perception? Peculiarly, my rumination has brought to mind an ancient ritual which served an essential purpose of relieving fear and sadness: that of the sin-eater. This macabre ritual was practiced in Britain for ages right up until the last century. Bread would be placed upon the corpse’s chest and left there to absorb his or her sins. Then, while loved ones bore witness, the sin-eater would eat the bread, taking the sins into himself thereby freeing the deceased’s soul to enter Paradise. Though considered essential, sin-eaters were associated with the occult and shunned, forced to live in isolation. I had always wondered why they would do this and how they purged themselves of these ingested transgressions.

Now I think I understand. I feel oddly connected to these sin-eaters of old, for I have spent my life being a sorrow-eater, soaking up emanated sadness. Similarly plagued by their gift of perception, the sin-eaters were irresistibly drawn to the fear felt by mourning families, as the eternal torments of hell weighed heavily on people’s minds. However, unlike me, the sin-eater did not sit idly by feeling sad and useless. He stepped forth from isolation to perform a reassuring service for the mourners, to alleviate some of their terror. Although paid for his services, he was risking his own soul. Perhaps he believed that in performing this supreme act of love for his fellow beings, he earned his own redemption.

I need to be of similar use. If, like the sin-eater, I can step forth from my isolation and draw at least a portion of sadness out of the tormented people I encounter, if I can truly ingest it then purge it through my poems and stories, I too, can find redemption.

Monica Weber Babcock has had numerous poems and short stories published in The John Carroll Review. Now a full-time writer, she has taught writing at John Carroll University and Lorain County Community College. Her poetry chapbook Heartscape was published in 2013, and her novel Burden of Remembrance in 2018. She is currently researching and writing her second novel.