A Morning Prayer in a Little Church
海伦·海斯 \/ Helen Hayes
Once, years ago, I got into a dogfight. I was wheeling a baby carriage, my pet cocker spaniel trotting beside me. Without warning, three dogs—an Afghan, a St. Bernard and a Dalmatian-pounced on the cocker and started tearing him to pieces. I shrieked for help. Two men in a car stopped, looked, and drove on.
When I saw that I was so infuriated that I waded in and stopped the fight myself. My theatrical training never stood me in better stead. My shouts were so authoritative, my gestures, so arresting, I commanded the situation like a lion—tamer and the dogs finally slunk away.
Looking back, I think I acted less in anger than from a realization that I was on my own, that if anybody was going to help me at that moment, it had to be myself.
Life seems to be a series of crises that have to be faced. In summoning strength to face them, though, I once fooled myself into an exaggerated regard of my own importance. I felt very independent. I was only distantly aware of other people. I worked hard and was “successful”. In the theater, I was brought up in the tradition of service. The audience pays its money and you are expected to give your best performance both on and off the stage. So I served on committees, and made speeches, and backed causes. But somehow the meaning of things escaped me.
When my daughter died of polio, everybody stretched out a hand to help me, but at first I couldn’t seem to bear the touch of anything, even the love of friends; no support seemed strong enough.
While Mary was still sick. I used to go early in the morning to a little church near the hospital to pray. There the working people came quietly to worship. I had been careless with my religion, I had rather cut God out of my life, and I didn’t have the nerve at the time to ask Him to make my daughter well—I only asked Him to help me understand, to let me come in and reach Him. I prayed th