The Sunday After Christmas

Little sweetheart, for the last three years your mom and I have had something of a tradition. We drive down to San Francisco on the Sunday after Christmas, have brunch at The Top of the Mark and then walk across California Street to Grace Cathedral.

The first two years, I think I told you, that amazing art installation, "Graced by Light - The Ribbon Project", by Anne Patterson was there. Last year there was also a really neat Christmas tree that was decorated with white paper that had been folded into little birds and when you got up close you could see that they had people's prayers written on them. I wrote one for you and put it in the branches myself.

This year none of those things were going on but we walked around quietly and looked at the big frescoes painted there. Taken together, they sorta tell the story of California and San Francisco and the church itself. It goes around the entire massive walls on either side. And I'd looked at all of it before but I today I noticed the face of a little girl in a crowd of painted figures. She reminded me so much of you, my little sweetheart, and I felt the tears begin to come.

Later, we sat down near the front. The organist was practicing for the service later that night. He seemed to be working on the tricky bits, starting a phrase and then stopping, the great reverberations echoing throughout the place, bouncing off the high arched ceilings. I recognized one of the works. It was a Christmas song I quite like. It always begins the 9 Lessons and Carols service that the BBC broadcasts each Christmas Eve from Kings College Cambridge. It was Once in Royal David City.

I kinda know the words or at least I kinda think I do kinda. I picked up a hymnal and I noticed they didn't have any titles. But they're all sorted by occasion. Like Easter or Advent or All Soul's. I found the section that was for Christmas and looked through that until I found the song. There's several verses and a couple of them I'm pretty sure are rarely if ever sung. One verse, the fourth, really caught my eye. Remember, little sweetheart, how I told you about that short meditation I was asked to write for Good Friday? It very much reminded me of that:

Verse 4
For He is our lifelong pattern
Daily, when on earth he grew
He was tempted, scorned, rejected
Tears and smiles, like us, He knew
Thus He feels for all our sadness
And He shares in all our gladness

We stayed for a while after. A brass quartet arrived and the organist went through the music with them. We listened to all of the rehearsal, walking up quietly and slipping into the choir stalls. It was really wonderful.

I feel awfully lonely for you, my little sweetheart. Sometimes I really don't think I can bear it. But little moments like this help. When I hear nice music or read something so resonant - I'm glad I began going to those Taize candlelight services back home in NYC - or I see something like that figure in the mural that calls to me and lets me know you're somehow near. Thank you, my little sweetheart. Please, always be with me. With love forever...