This is Me Practicing

When resurrection doesn't feel real

I couldn’t shake the sad yesterday. Everyone, a whole row of us in baby blues and bright pinks, greens and yellows, feeling the swell, the crescendo, the Hallelujah chorus sung by parishioners pulled from pews at the last second, perfection, a surprise of it, and I couldn’t shake the sad. I wore my blue shirt with the eyelet lace and edge of frill, my golden or green pants depending on the light, and I wore them right into the swing back home and I wore my snotty nose into one puffy sleeve and then the other. The sad stings, it sits, it hovers too close to the surface to shake.

It is 25 years since the Holy Week where my two younger brothers left on a rainy day and only one returned home and only one returned home to a home that was already splintered and would soon crack and would soon crumble and would never be put together again. Another friend lost her brother this week. I groan. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not coming home. The Pope died this morning. Boys take guns from their mothers to shoot classmates and that’s never stopping, not in our lifetime. Bombs are still dropping on babies in Gaza. Babies are still not persons here. Someone I know thinks only one of these things matters in the grand scheme of things. I groan.