Paul knew almost nothing about his father until he found the box of photographs in the attic. From that moment on, he spent day and night looking at them, and every time his mother, Ethel, spoke on the phone with Edith Gainesworm. Amazed, he contemplated his father at different stages of his life: first as a boy his own age, then as a young man, and finally, before his death, dressed in his Army uniform.
– Short story by American novelist James Purdy

This is the beginning of the story by American novelist James Purdy (1914-2009), whose protagonist is a sick child despised by his mother, with whom he lives. In fact, she does not want to acknowledge herself as a mother, because she refuses to accept that she has a sick son who clings tightly to what remains of his past: photos of his father. The mother repeatedly asks him why he has stayed asleep on the staircase and why he always looks at the photographs there. The son cannot tell her why, or rationalize the reason for this behavior, given that his feelings when he sees those photos are very visceral. The mother decides to take them away from him and burn them in the basement oven.

Faced with such a theft of the only past he has left, the boy reacts like this at the end of the story:

But the scene she saw made her stop. He had shrunk, crouching on the floor, and clutching the boxes to his stomach, he emitted a kind of hiss at the woman, so that she had no chance to approach him or take him away, while a thick, fibrous, blackish substance came out of the child’s mouth, as if he were vomiting his heart full of bitterness.
– End of the story

The title of Purdy’s story, Why Can’t They Tell You Why?, leaves the reader puzzled, wondering why the boy couldn’t tell his mother why he was looking at photos of his father, and why his heart was spewing bitterness.

Let’s see if we can find the answer, but from a humorous perspective. Claudio Epelman, executive director of the Latin American Jewish Congress and an old friend of Pope Bergoglio, commented that during the congress, the Pope told a joke full of meaning, following the custom of rabbis to tell stories. The audience liked the story, and it broke the ice at the meeting:

He told the story of an anti-Semitic priest who attacked Jews whenever he could. One day, during a sermon, this priest found an excuse and began attacking Jews, as usual, in a virulent manner. During a pause, Jesus came down from the cross, looked at the Virgin Mary, and said, “Mother, let’s go. It seems they don’t want us here.”
– History of the Pope

We already know why Paul, in James Purdy’s story, cannot tell his mother. Family and ancestors are not just a story of sharing the same blood, but a story of shared love rooted deep within our being. Love is the best and only legacy; it gives meaning to our identity as a people and as individuals. We cannot reject our past or do without it, for it is all we have left: that of Christians in their Jewish parents; that of our own parents, which runs deep like a living flame of love for our soul; that of Jesus, who, without Joseph being his natural father, “was considered the son of Joseph” and a descendant of all his ancestors from Eli, through David and Abraham, back to Adam himself (Lk 3:23-38). For in that “he was considered,” we take for granted that ‘consideration’ is a work of love that runs underground from Adam, and a work that defines us as children. If we lacked this, if this love did not exist, we would be like a “crippled and dying animal.”

SOURCE: “Why Can’t They Tell You Why?” by James Purdy (translation: Juan Godo Costa, Crónicas de Norteamérica, Buenos Aires, Jorge Álvarez publishing house, 1967)