A stained-glass window that no longer allows light to shine through
By Henrik Eger
Old stained-glass window, 1800s, from the collection of Henrik Eger.
Maybe it was the ruins around Cologne Cathedral after World War II where we walked for quite some time before we passed houses where people actually lived. Maybe it was living in a one-bedroom apartment with three families, one bathroom, and regular cleaning the staircase on the third floor that my little sister and I had been assigned to clean every two weeks. Maybe it was the bombed-out buildings across my great grandmother’s apartment where we lived—ruins that we were not allowed to play in because of bombs that could still go off, even though we paid no attention as children--
that made me yearn for something complete, something whole, something that had not been destroyed.
Many decades later, I lucked out winning scholarships in the U.S., becoming a tenured full professor of English and Communication, and finding and buying a large, beautiful old house, one brick away from a mansion with a garden on both sides in a working class/middle class area, West of Philadelphia—a house so large that some of my friends questioned whether I wouldn’t go crazy staring at empty walls.
Little did they know that my desire to bring back the things I never had, the things that got destroyed in the past, the things that once meant a great deal to families around the world whose grandchildren didn’t understand what previous generations had built and painted and framed and filled with love would be precisely the things I like to collect and move in to my house where I could cherish them every day.
World War II took most everything away from millions of people in Europe, but the flea markets and garage sales in Upper Darby and Media, PA, and all over New Jersey were the treasure troves where Ali Baba and his 40 thieves had deposited some of the finest treasures they could find, except that many of those folks no longer valued them and so I find myself checking Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, looking for antiques and unusual artwork that beg me to liberate them from some basement in Philadelphia, Reading, King of Prussia, PA, or traveling to homes in New Jersey where one can find treasures in most unexpected places like Beatyestown, Beckett, Belford, Belleville, Bellmawr, Belvidere, Berkeley Heights, or Berlin Borough.
Last week, I went to one of the fanciest of gated communities to buy an old stained-glass window. They wouldn’t let me into the house, but opened their garage for me. The daughter, a student, maybe 19, told me that her father was so busy making money through his telephone calls that he barely even had time for her. When I asked her, “What about your mom?” she told me that her mother was in good hands in a classy hospice. “What happened?” I asked.
“Quite a few years ago,” she said, “my mother developed Multiple Sclerosis and my father divorced her and married my stepmother, but,” the young woman said, “he contributes to the expense of that place where she can live and die peacefully.”
When I went home and tried to hang their stained-glass window, I noticed that no light was shining through. No warmth, just external beauty—something I did not see when the young woman sold me her mother’s old leaded glass window in their darkened garage. Frankly, I do not know what to do. Deep down, I’d like to open up the back of the window, take out the darkened glass which prevents light from coming through, cut a rose from my garden, and then visit the mother with MS.
that made me yearn for something complete, something whole, something that had not been destroyed.
Many decades later, I lucked out winning scholarships in the U.S., becoming a tenured full professor of English and Communication, and finding and buying a large, beautiful old house, one brick away from a mansion with a garden on both sides in a working class/middle class area, West of Philadelphia—a house so large that some of my friends questioned whether I wouldn’t go crazy staring at empty walls.
Little did they know that my desire to bring back the things I never had, the things that got destroyed in the past, the things that once meant a great deal to families around the world whose grandchildren didn’t understand what previous generations had built and painted and framed and filled with love would be precisely the things I like to collect and move in to my house where I could cherish them every day.
World War II took most everything away from millions of people in Europe, but the flea markets and garage sales in Upper Darby and Media, PA, and all over New Jersey were the treasure troves where Ali Baba and his 40 thieves had deposited some of the finest treasures they could find, except that many of those folks no longer valued them and so I find myself checking Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, looking for antiques and unusual artwork that beg me to liberate them from some basement in Philadelphia, Reading, King of Prussia, PA, or traveling to homes in New Jersey where one can find treasures in most unexpected places like Beatyestown, Beckett, Belford, Belleville, Bellmawr, Belvidere, Berkeley Heights, or Berlin Borough.
Last week, I went to one of the fanciest of gated communities to buy an old stained-glass window. They wouldn’t let me into the house, but opened their garage for me. The daughter, a student, maybe 19, told me that her father was so busy making money through his telephone calls that he barely even had time for her. When I asked her, “What about your mom?” she told me that her mother was in good hands in a classy hospice. “What happened?” I asked.
“Quite a few years ago,” she said, “my mother developed Multiple Sclerosis and my father divorced her and married my stepmother, but,” the young woman said, “he contributes to the expense of that place where she can live and die peacefully.”
When I went home and tried to hang their stained-glass window, I noticed that no light was shining through. No warmth, just external beauty—something I did not see when the young woman sold me her mother’s old leaded glass window in their darkened garage. Frankly, I do not know what to do. Deep down, I’d like to open up the back of the window, take out the darkened glass which prevents light from coming through, cut a rose from my garden, and then visit the mother with MS.
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