St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church

II. To-Do List

30.168° N, -93.279° W

Tell M.E. about seeing her son P.Q. in the eyes, the hair, and the eyebrows of a stranger at church last Sunday.

They say that during Communion, the souls of the departed gather around the altar with us to celebrate the Mass, to celebrate Jesus, to share in the consecration of the Eucharist.

That’s when I saw him.

P.Q.

The stranger had chosen the seat closest to the pulpit, only a few feet from the steps to the altar. Those seats are usually reserved for the readers, but the stranger did not read. From where I sat across the church, I had a perfect view of the man’s face.

I watched as his lips moved with the responses, prayers, and songs. He may have held his wife's hand during the service, but I don't remember. He seemed like the kind of man who would, the kind who would give her hand a gentle squeeze just to tell her he loved her, almost as much as he loved sharing this part of his heart, the Mass, the worship, with her.

The stranger’s hair was black. Slicked back. His eyebrows were thick. Bushy. Just like P.Q.'s.

But the stranger didn't simply remind me of my childhood friend, the first boy who ever made me feel dreamy when I looked at him. The man's familiar features assured me P.Q. was present at my Mass, as much as he has always been present at his mother's.

I've been going to this church for two years now, marked by the death and funeral of my neighbor's wife, an unexpected death of a healthy tennis player in her seventies.

I knew this place had become home when I watched the priest swing the censer of incense back and forth over her coffin. He prayed that all our prayers for the repose of her soul would be carried to Heaven and placed before God, that she might be fully purified to live alongside Him, walk in fields of wildflowers with Jesus, and listen to the whispers of a generation of humanity speaking their heart's desires, fears, guilt, and hopes to the One who knows them best.

My friend P.Q. has come to me in the middle of the night, in the space between wake and deep rest.

At first, he was lost and very frightened. He didn't know where he was. We stood on a ramp covered with red carpet, much like an old movie theater from the 80s, and he didn't know which way to go because there were so many faceless spirits around.

I told him to look at the lanterns hanging on the walls.

I told him they were guideposts. That they would lead him out.

I reassured him that the Light would save him.

P.Q. came again, this time in a pitch-black room. He hadn’t given up. He still searched for the rich life after death, the one we had been promised in Sunday school where he wiggled in his chair. All he wanted was to be released and run outside into the woods where he could jump from boulders, build tree forts, and plant the tallest sunflowers anyone had ever seen.

In the room of moonless nights, I reminded him to inspect every dark corner for even a spark of Light because that was the way, the direction, the path that had been laid inside his heart a long, long time ago.

The Kingdom awaited his return.

The third time he came, he’d made it. He’d crossed over. And he wanted to show me.

He was full of the childlike glee that only a kid from Maine could feel in the dead of winter after a blizzard when school had been called off because of the treacherous roads.

He stood on the top of a hill with his mother and his sister, and the three of them jumped on their red sleds and whizzed down hills with rosy cheeks and breath made visible by the cold.

He was a daredevil, most likely understanding he would never hurt again.

I recently heard, either on a television show or in a book, that we do not get to choose the pain. We all receive it. But we can choose the kingdom we step toward, one footstep in front of another, until we reach the door and are welcomed home.

So I'll leave this here, at the bottom of today's page, where I first wrote it.

Tell M.E. I saw her son again. This time, fully alive kneeling at the altar of life.