A Letter From Me

Your Excellency,

I have been living in this monastery for 18 years. The brothers have been good to me. I think that I must be around 50 years old. I wandered onto the lands of the monastery, and was allowed to stay. I find that I like a life of contemplation and work making the beer for which the monastery is renowned and which allows us to be left alone in the main. I don’t want to think much, and it is not required of me. I get up for the canonical hours and recite prayers and chant songs in Latin. I learned these by repetition, by hearing them over and over again, until I knew the syllables as well as I know the sound of my own breathing.

I don’t know what the words mean. I am not required to know what they mean. I am not even a monk, nor do I need to become one. I would need to form intent to become a brother, and someone who has a mental condition cannot form intent, or so it has been said. The primary requirement to become a Friar in this order requires us to know that what we want to do is consistent with their core values and beliefs. I don’t know what my core values and beliefs are, because I do not know who I am, and that makes knowing your core values and beliefs a little difficult. I suffer with long term amnesia, I should say…but I don’t feel as if I suffer, because as I said, I am content to be where I am and doing what I am doing.

I did not always experience that sort of contentment. I will tell you what I know, or suspect, of my story and my arrival here. 

To do this, I work my way backward. I was aware that I was walking, but for how long I walked before being consciously aware of walking, I have no idea. I saw a large building and climbed up the hill. I sat on a bench by the door wondering what to do, when someone noticed me there, and brought me inside. They asked me why I was there, and I could not answer! They told me that I was very wet and bleeding out of a wound on the back of my head…but there was no rain. They patched me up, spoke kindly to me, and gave me dinner.  So what happened to me? Well, there is a river downhill from here, a pretty good sized one too. I could have fallen off the boat, struck my head, and still managed to float to safety, and come up the hill. Or, someone may have hit me over the head and dumped me out of a boat…or I may have walked through some water on my way up after getting hit in the head without realizing it or I fell and hit my head  while out for a walk, and then the water and so on. Again, I was not aware of what I was doing until shortly before I arrived here and was found by Brother Joseph.

I knew that there was some conversation between the brothers as to what to do with me. Someone might be missing me, searching for me. Should they notify the authorities? They asked me, and I replied, after giving it a lot of thought, that I wished that they would not contact the authorities. Does that make me very selfish? But they honored my wishes, and from that day forward, no other mention was made of contacting the authorities to see who I used to be.

And I say, “Used to be. Because I have no memory of that past life, whatever it was. Early on, I would ask myself if I would rather know if perhaps some kind people out there would like to see me returned, even if I did not know them. I tortured myself with these thoughts for some period of time. But then it occurred to me that if I were returned to those who missed me, it would not be much of a life…surrounded by well intentioned, even loving people all of which were strangers…because that is what they would have been to me…with no hope but that someday some jarring remembrance would bring about recollections of them all. It would be most selfish of them, come to think of it, to want to put that kind of pressure on someone…only because they want to be remembered by him…and it can only be frustrating to both them and myself, so I thought as time wore on.

And then I thought also, “what if I am a person who has committed bad actions in my life? What if I was hurt in some struggle with someone else who either wanted to hurt me for some reason or whom I wanted to hurt? What if I had escaped prison, or something equally heinous, and by going back I only risked being re-incarcerated, and having no way to repent my past because I do not recall it?

 I became gradually more and more used to the life and rhythm of the monastery and loathe to leave it. I became a bookkeeper here…that is something that we discovered I had a talent for doing. I was able to also show the Friars how they could save money in many ways. Of course, some commented, “These accomplishments must point to some part of your past life.” But I would tell the brother that I would prefer not to enter into speculation on that subject and that would be the last of it. Brothers here keep their thoughts to themselves, in general, on a variety of things. My life at the monastery is simple, quiet, and contemplative, and I like these things. But to become a monk, I never did. I could not form intent, if I did not know who I was. It was mostly on my part, this reservation, because they would have had me…but for that and for another reason, I didn’t think it would be fair. The other reason was that someday and somehow, it may come to light by some random accident that I am here, and my real past and that they harbored me here may come back to embarrass them, especially if I joined the order officially. But other than that, I live as they live, and comply with every restriction and duty of a monk to the order, except one…I do not, in general, leave the grounds. I do not want to risk being found, for all the reasons I have outlined, and the Father Abbott and other monks understand this reason and do not insist upon it.

The monks asked me after some time by what name I should be called. I didn’t know what my name was, and I surely did not know what to name myself. So I said, “call me “Me.” And so that became my name, and is the name on the door of my room. I knew that I could safely call myself “Me.”

Apparently now, I have found out that someone has appealed to the Holy See regarding my case. I was very surprised to learn of this. Apparently the appeal is very old, and the case has only come to Your Holiness this year. I ask why this has been done, and the Abbot is silent on the matter. At your request then, I have written to you, sharing my thoughts on the matter, and wishing only that if it pleases Your Holiness, I should like to retain my incognito and continue to work at the Monastery in the ways I have been. Yours sincerely,

Me