BY ELAINE KLAASSEN
Polly Pockets was born Paulina Griffiths. She lived in the neighborhood at Portland and Franklin all of her 60 years. She was a humble woman who made it her mission in life to “love on people.” Papa Bear (Pastor Todd Finney) of Every Tribe and Tongue Church, at 19th and Portland, says she was the closest thing to a saint he has ever known. When she died, at the beginning of 2015, of an infected scratch from a cat she was trying to rescue, Pastor Todd saw angels on either side of her as she passed into the next life. At her memorial service, each person who got up to remember her was allowed three minutes, and the stories went on for an hour and a half.
Polly Pockets’ background was like that of many. Her mother committed suicide; her father was an abusive alcoholic; she married a man who resembled her family, and the marriage ended in divorce. Along the way, she experienced the general grace of God, the grace offered to everyone, and she accepted it to the extreme. She determined to always find the good, the beautiful, the joyful in life. She was ever conscious of God’s love and God’s presence as she limped along working odd jobs, living in subsidized housing.
She wore a house dress with pockets on it where she kept objects that she found and then gave to people. One day when Papa Bear was about 8, he was misbehaving and his dad punished him by throwing his favorite toy car out the car window as they drove down the highway. Years later Polly Pockets pulled that same toy car out of one of her many pockets and gave it to him. He wept. That’s how she was—tuned in to others. She had a sixth sense about other people’s wounds.
A Polly Pockets celebration was held last June and the plan is to do the same in the years to come. Pastor Todd originally put the idea for the celebration into motion and the other congregations that meet in the church building at 19th and Portland—Ebenezer Oromo Church, ICCM Spanish Congregation and St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church—unanimously agreed. This year it will be on Thursday, June 30, at 5 p.m. There will be kids games, food, fun, music from recognized local talents. The Sunday before, the churches will be planting flowers and cleaning in Polly Pockets’ honor.
