Easter Sunday... 1957.
Holy Saturday... drizzling rain all day... windows, droplets, the chill... radiator warm. It didn't matter one bit, that night I was going to get a new rain coat... a real trench coat. So cool... fold over front... buttons and belt, I had nothing else on my mind... not so young any more.
A change of plans... I was on my way out the door at 2pm... I would get the chance to wear my coat... couldn't wait for ever... time wouldn't let me. But I had to be at The Church for Holy Saturday... I was in the choir... to sing... what to do? One voice missing... just this one time and time wouldn't let me. I said nothing and went with my folks to get my new coat... all mine... not so young any more. The services slipped from in side my head... into the stream of rain that flowed away down the paths of my coat. It hung in my room in the dark. I thought how tomorrow would be the first time my parents would at Mass since I was a little kid and now they would go and spot me in the balcony singing thanks for so much.
I arrived early that morning at the church in my new coat with my freshly ironed uniform draped over my arm bright red and white. My mother and father would arrive later in time to see it and hear it all. The entire choir was assembling and then I hear her... Sister Mary Bernard calling to me... words of anger. The choir parted like the Red Sea and a cloud that I ran from the day before caught up to my life and poured down without a moment's lost over the time that wouldn't let me. She threw me out. I didn't show up on Holy Saturday. She took what my mom ironed and told me to leave. The silence returned itself to an attentive group of hovering red and moved away down the hall towards 10 o'clock Mass.
I left the church and made my way across the street in my new rain coat. I stood all alone that morning occasionally saying Happy Easter to people hurrying for the wooden doors that separated me from my mom and dad. I didn't think anything else. I didn't care if I was out of the choir... or that I was even missing Easter Sunday Mass and going to hell for it. All I could imagine was the smiles and turned heads of my parents looking to catch a glimpse of me. Over and over I made it run through head. I closed my coat and pulled my collar up in shame.
Easter Sunday, for me, would never be the same and I add to the rhyme... I am totally to blame.
