Lady In The Tin Foil Hat

“I’ll get it!” I yelled when the door bell rang popping off the couch and rushing for the door.  I had been poking and shaking the presents under the tree in anticipation of the grand opening late that evening. Everyone else in the house was off doing other things, my mom and aunt preparing dinner and my uncle working on his Christmas Morning sermon.
Christmas Eve at the minister’s house was hectic. My Mom, brother and I always would arrive late in the afternoon after a full day of shopping and fall into the familiar pattern of wrapping gifts and helping with dinner before the seven o’clock Candlelight Service. This had been the Christmas Eve routine for nine years. My aunt and Uncles house was as familiar to me as my own. We weren’t guests we were family.
Guests would come and go for days leading up to this night; neighbours and parishioners would drop by to offer season’s greetings, sweets and treats for the local minister and his family. All guests were invited in most would say they were just stopping briefly on their way home or out to a gathering. When the door would close behind them the bustle in the house would pick up again where it left off.
I was sixteen that Christmas, a small town girl used to small town ways. My Uncles church and the manse were a firm reminder of my sheltered life at home.
There was an excitement when people came bearing gifts. When the doorbell rang and I jumped to answer it, it never occurred to me that the person on the other side would be anyone but the neighbours or parishioners I expected.
The woman standing under the glow of the porch light, back lit by the frosty streetlights was unlike anyone I had ever seen.
She was dressed in tattered wool.  The coat looked like something the Salvation Army would discard as being unsalable. The tiny woman wearing it had lined it with newsprint in an attempt to add extra insulation against the cold. The coat was a feeble excuse for warmth against the bitter night air.
Her hands were covered in mismatched wool gloves, her reddened flesh peeking through a few worn fingertips. She had a holey scarf wound around her neck, the ends tucked into the coat between the layers of newsprint.  She had the distinct smell of mothballs and dirt.
As shabbily as she was dressed, her clothes didn’t startle me half as much as her Vaseline covered face that gave her a glossy alien appearance and the foil lined cardboard box that engulfed her head, like she was a character in a bad television show.
“Reverend Lemke?” her voice was raspy and thin, her eyes darted like a newly caged animal.
“Um…, Ah…, Uncle Russ? Uncle Russ!” my voice raised an octave with each halted word and brought everyone to the living room. My backward retreat was stalled by the furniture that had been nestled closer together to accommodate the huge tree in front of the picture window.
Much to my relief my beloved uncle magically appeared behind me, my Uncle Russ’s tender touch on my shoulders somehow settling the fear and anxiety in my chest.
“Come in,” he said to the lady in the tin foil hat, gently moving me aside to step around me. He guided her in and offered her a seat on the sofa.
She perched on the edge of the cushion, like a cat waiting to be shooed her fingers twisting at invisible threads on her gloves. Her voice barely above a grated whisper as she spoke to my uncle who nodded compassionately, offering gently words of understanding. He seemed completely unfazed by her appearance.
I had never seen anyone like her and part of me was curious about her circumstance, the other part was frightened by what she was. I stood unabashedly staring at her, my eyes wide and my mouth agape. Everyone around me seemed to behave as if this woman was an everyday visitor to the minister’s living room.
The bustle in the house slowed to a crawl, time stood as a sentinel while my uncle ministered to this frail woman. My aunt and mother spoke in hushed tones directing us kids to finish setting the table, making sure we set a place for her. It was quietly understood that our duties were carried out in subdued silence.
She joined us at the table bowing her head in gratitude for the meal. I thought later it was likely her first real meal in days possibly weeks. Her eyes darted around the table looking at each of us. She looked like a scared rabbit encircled by a pack of hungry wolves, fearing that at any minute that she would be attacked and devoured.
When dinner ended and we cleared the table the lady with the tin foil hat disappeared from the house like a skiff of snow on a windshield. The activity accelerated from zero to sixty as we resumed our normal Christmas Eve activities of wrapping gifts and getting ready for the seven o’clock Candlelight Service.
I never saw the lady again. I learned years later at my Uncle’s funeral that the lady was a frequent visitor to the manse. She was, as I expected homeless, and was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. She believed that everyone was out to hurt her, most specifically the government; she also believed that she could find a brief respite from their incessant prying, in the tranquility of my Aunt and Uncle’s home.
The lessons from my brief encounter with her were not fully realized until years later, but she is as fresh in my mind today as she was when I opened the door to her glossy Vaseline covered face peering out at me from the inside of her cardboard, foil - lined ‘television’ hat.  The tenderness and compassion my Uncle showed this frail creature in her time of need was not lost on my adolescent psyche.