After Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly Saturday, a number of people have shared memories of the man. Perhaps none were more touching than a short item on the website of the Foundation for Economic Education, which does not sound like the sort of place one looks for tearjerkers.
“Now that he is gone from from this earth, I can tell a story I’ve held inside for many years, a scene that touched me deeply and profoundly,” wrote FEE’s Jeffrey Tucker right after the judge’s death. “I cannot think of him without remembering the moment.”
It happened on a “Spring afternoon,” some time ago in church. Scalia, who was a lifelong Catholic, had stayed after Mass to pray at a back pew. The church was nearly empty. Tucker wrote that he was “a bystander, and I’m certain he didn’t know I was there.”
When Scalia “finally got up and began to walk out,” Tucker watched a woman who to all appearances had “no idea who he was” come up to the judge.
This woman “had lashing sores on her face and hands. They were open sores.”
Tucker figured she was afflicted with “some disease, and not just physically.” He explained, “She behaved strangely, a troubled person that you meet in large cities and quickly walk away from. A person to avoid and certainly never touch.”
Scalia never got that don’t-touch-icky-people memo. As Tucker told it, “For whatever reason, she walked up to Justice Scalia, who was alone. He took her hands though they were full of sores. She leaned in to say something, and she began to cry.
“He held her face next to his, and she talked beneath her tears that were now streaming down his suit. He didn’t try to get away. He just held her while she spoke. This lasted for perhaps more than 5 minutes. He closed his eyes while she spoke, gripping her back with his hand.”
After a weeping for some time, “Finally she was finished. What he said comforted her, and she gained composure. She pulled away, ready to go. He held her rough, sore-filled hands and had a few final words that I could not hear. He gave her some money.”
Then the woman walked out of the church. So too, after a brief pause, did Scalia, “across the green grass toward the Supreme Court building, alone … preparing for an afternoon of work.”
