The Altar boys, all up earlier than they wanted to be on a Saturday, almost looked like they had hangovers. They were getting close to that age, and they all stood lifeless and uncommitted to the solemnity that was trying to unfold around them. Beneath their surplices they wore mismatched jeans and sneakers, the accidental finds of a rushed morning, and as the priest called forth to his Father in heaven, the eyes of the boys lost focus. They stood blankly, their posture falling away as if they were now slumped on the back of the school bus given to far off horizons.
The priest, as dramatic as an extra seeking stardom, had a conversation with God while the rest of us wondered where the deceased was, wondered if the priest might for a moment bring her back to us through his words. But no, he offered Communion to the assembly, and as they took it and passed by I looked in their faces, too, hoping to see some remembrance of the life that had just passed.
What was the woman with the churchy frown thinking?
The man with the drinker’s nose?
The person in a bomber jacket with the getaway tan?
It was all a mystery, one made rigid by ceremony.
The Altar boys, zoned-out by repetitions, forgot to stifle their yawns.
And then the granddaughter of the deceased began to sing.
Her voice was revelation.
The church was still and then full.
All the stained glass windows suddenly made sense and the young woman’s voice, in an ancient and unfamiliar tongue, was rising beautifully. As if propelled and animated by the life of her grandmother, the woman was thusly returned to the congregation. The song of voice a distillate of all that had come before, now ascending through the church like incense, like light, to all that was to follow.
