A Look Back

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the church was that the purple carpet was gone, replaced by elegant cream-colored tiles. I hadn’t been in the church for four years and I almost missed the dated carpet in that awkward shade somewhere between lavender and purple.

This parish church was attached to the parochial school where my children attended from kindergarten to the 8^th grade. After they graduated, we changed parishes so we could attend mass with my parents. I was back because my nephew was being confirmed.

As I chose a pew and sat down, I took a long look around. It struck me that some of the most meaningful events in my life took place in this building, starting in my teen years.

When I was 17, I belonged to a youth group that gathered in the church on Sunday nights for mass at 7:30, followed by a social event.

When I was 18, I stood on the altar and read the first and second readings during mass almost every Sunday. I learned how to speak in front of hundreds of people without feeling nervous or self-conscious.

When I was 20, I brought my boyfriend to meet the other members of the youth group. Later, this boyfriend turned into a husband and we became close with the parish priest who would one day marry us and baptize our children.

When I was 33, my daughter started kindergarten at the parish school and my son followed a year later. Each Christmas, we attended the Christmas pageant put on by the student body. We attended 10 years of Christmas pageants.

When my son was in the 3^rd grade, he stood in front of his class on the altar and played the violin while his classmates sang Christmas carols. During other masses, he played the piano.

He was a professional altar boy. He trained altar servers who were coming up in the ranks. He was always asked to serve when the bishop came to preside over the mass.

I remember one Palm Sunday when my young son followed the bishop around the church as he dipped a tree bough in the bowl of water that Adam carried and doused the congregation. Adam was soaked but he followed solemnly as the bishop circled the church.

When I was 36, my daughter made her first reconciliation. She sat outside the confessional, waiting her turn, showing the kid next to her how many teeth she’d lost so far.

Next came her first communion, and I remember her gliding in through the doors of the church in her frothy white dress and veil, carrying a pole with streamers that floated all around her. As she passed, she flashed her Mona Lisa smile and kept moving.

When my son made his first reconciliation a year later, he emerged from the confessional beaming, and called out, “I’m a brand new man!” He was in the second grade.

When I was 38, I sat in the church, crying, attending the funeral of my favorite priest.

When I was 40, I learned that my daughter had managed, somehow, to get her knee stuck in the crevice of the pew in front of her, and the principal had spent the whole mass spraying WD-40 on her knee (and slathering her leg with lotion) trying to twist and turn her to set her free.

The mass went on around them as they contemplated whether or not to call the fire department to come and chop up the pew! My daughter relayed the story when I picked her up later that afternoon. She shrugged, the way she still shrugs, as though it were just another day.

When I was 42, my son was confirmed (I had the flu when my daughter was confirmed) and I crept up to the altar with my camera to get a photo of the bishop with his hands on Adam’s head, blessing him.

My daughter graduated from the 8^th grade, processing into the church and up to the altar (unsteady in her new high-heeled shoes) to receive her diploma. A year later, I watched my son retrace her steps as he wriggled around in his suit.

And now, at 46, I stood with the rest of the congregation and sang the first song to start the mass. The walls were now painted cream instead of lavender and I was surrounded by mostly unfamiliar faces.

But I spent a lot of time in this church. Over the years, I evolved from a naïve teenager into a woman with grown children. I looked down at my hands, now slightly wrinkled and spotted. I glanced at my son sitting next to me—my youngest who would leave for college in three short months.

I suddenly missed those years, knowing I did not want to relive them. I missed the lavender carpet, knowing that the tiles looked good.