terrypetersen

Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen. (George Saunders)

The lectern at the church is too high for a woman like me who has slipped under the five-foot mark during the past few years. I smile, exaggerating my tiptoed stance. After all, it’s obvious that my father’s oldest daughter inherited his wife’s height.

Years ago when I acted as lector at another church, there was a wooden stool that could be pushed back and forth for the shorter readers. There isn’t anything like that here. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t a stage; I’m delivering a eulogy. I have five minutes, but hope to relay my message in less than three—not sure my tear ducts will hold out any longer. Now my balance threatens to give up, too; it doesn’t take long before I give up the façade of four-inch high heels and stand flat, my chin hidden as if I were in a bad photograph.

I have decided to be bold and speak as my father, a few octaves higher perhaps, and thank my siblings for the gift they were to him. I may be close to the ground, but my gaze reaches over my brothers’ and sister’s heads. No eye contact now. I’ll save that for later, when tears won’t create a domino effect and flood a perfectly lovely church.

As the service progresses, memories fly through my mind like drunken fireflies. I look to my right to see who is sitting in the pew where I was when my mother died. I recall my father’s quiet slump. Then I’m in a second-grade classroom and back again in the church, in the back, ready to walk down the aisle. Dad is at my side. Forty-one years have dissolved and it’s 1971; I’m about to be married.

In the next moment it’s time to go to the choir loft to lead a simple song based on Psalm 23. I’m uncertain because I haven’t practiced with the organist. I flub the words in one line of the second verse. Not too bad. Can’t let the fumble stop me. I want to be like my sister Claire who has sung Schubert’s Ave Maria so many times, she once sang it accompanied by an organ that sounded like an old-time organ grinder. Her first thought was, Where is the monkey? Yet, she didn’t miss a beat!

I look into the congregation and see my oldest granddaughter Kate staring up at me: the time gap between us is 58 years. Time. Space. Real, and yet illusion. My thoughts are as organized as tossed confetti. And yet . . .and yet . . . despite the sadness I feel a beauty that transcends the moment and embraces eternity.