Save Me
Sandra Florence

Dear mom:

There is something about this chapel that comforts me. I'm not sure what it is. Each night that I come here, I feel a kind of sinking in, my emotions settle. We have spent three weeks writing haiku to and from the chapel--everything from it's adobe walls, to the hill it sits on, the surrounding land, the people who inhabit the area, the rituals and traditions, communions, fiestas, processions, songs, its history and its myth. When I sit in the small hard pews, even that is a comfort and I'm reminded of being a child and sitting in the pews of the Methodist church. Of course they were much bigger although just as hard. Churches with their stuffy sweet smell remind me of you and grandma-I mean stuffiness in the best possible way-comfort, protection, being enveloped.

I remember grandma talking about "being saved" and how important that was and of you talking about it, being twenty-two and getting full-immersion baptism. The idea of being dunked under the water and somehow ensuring the saving grace of a higher power was a comfort. Although in the Methodist Church I only got a sprinkle of water on my headnot quiet the cathartic bath of full-immersion you got to experience. But still, it gave me some reassurance and it was the modern way.

Church was central in our lives wasn't it, although it certainly wasn't all about religion--in fact, mostly it was about socializing. The religious rituals went on around us when we were children and I felt enveloped in them, wine and the body of Christ, baptism, hymnal, prayer and benediction. But I remember other things more, playing red rover red rover on the lawn outside, or hiding on the stairs at the back of the building, or piano recitals, cake in the fireplace room after the recital, mother and daughter banquets and Mr. Gilkey's trembling walk up the aisle each Sunday morning, Easter hats and gloves, lavender organdy. I even remember you saving me from that man--I don't know his name--and he's been dead for years--but he was a church deacon or some thing. I was in the nursery and I started to cry. He came in and began yelling at me. I guess I was about two or three. I remember his scowling face over my crib. You intervened and swooped me up into your arms and carried me out of there. I don't know if we returned to the sanctuary or went home that day. You were so protective of your children.

You taught Sunday School to the middle school girls. That was fun. You always looked so dressed up and proper, your white gloves laid on the table by the bible as you instructed us in one of the parables. I enjoyed your class-you made a good teacher even though I know you were nervous before the lessons. But all of us looked forward to your quiet and careful way of relating biblical events in a way we could understand and care about.

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