Center section. Six rows back. Left end with an ink spot on the gold pew fabric shaped like Utah or one of the other of those squarish states out west. That’s where we sat every Sunday when I was a kid; where we sat in the “new” sanctuary, that is. Of course, that sanctuary is now fifty years old, and that pew is long gone.
Sundays were always the same – first Sunday School, then the service where I sat on the end of the pew next to my mother, with my brother on her other side. My father, the pastor, was on the platform. I treasured the rare occasions when he was able to sit with us, his arm around me, listening to him breathe. But it was usually my mother, brother and me on Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings and Wednesday evenings.
She sang a beautiful alto, but she once told me she usually sang melody when I was sitting with her in church because she was afraid her alto would confuse me … she obviously identified my ear for music early on. Year after year I sat with her and my brother. My dad was called to pastor another church when I was a teenager, so we identified a new place to sit as a family in the new sanctuary. As I grew older, I sat with other kids on Sunday and Wednesday evenings, but I always sat with Mom on Sunday mornings. My girlfriend, who became my wife, joined us.
Mom died over fourteen years ago, but she was gone long before that Alzheimer’s having taken her away from us many years before. She continued to attend church for a while but could not sing her beautiful alto, did not know her friends, and lost her ability to communicate. It was painful to observe her descent into disorder and confusion, and, ultimately, to a place of emptiness where any form of personal engagement ceased, but I was grateful she remained with us physically for as long as she did.
Today is her birthday – she would have been 96. I miss her but I would not have her come back to this broken world in her broken body. She is experiencing life to its absolute fullest, the way it was always intended to be lived, in the presence of her Savior. But I would love to have one more Sunday sitting beside her in church, listening to her sing, doodling on a bulletin, kinda/sorta paying attention to my dad, and feeling like all was right with the world. Happy Birthday, Mom.