Something Beyond Us

It was cold, so cold, when we left the church and walked out into the winter air. I put my arm around your grandmother and held her tight. It seems funny calling her your grandmother. We were so young, only teenagers at the time, and she had less than one year to live.

She was so shaken by seeing the silver-haired woman in the church that her body trembled when we left, so I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her in to stop the shaking. Tom and Shirley were in front of us, so they didn’t notice. The walk through the parking lot was quiet, and the stars were bright above us. In the western sky a darkness was gathering, clouds bringing in another snowstorm.

“Well, that was interesting,” Tom stated as we all found our spots in his car. Shirley sat in the passenger seat, a peaceful smile on her face.

“What are you smiling at?” Tom asked, laughing.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I liked it.”

“Liked what?” He seemed to be getting more and more confused by Shirley’s obvious enjoyment of the church service.

“I don’t know. Goodness, Tom. Why are you being this way?”

“I’m not being any which way,” Tom said, his voice softening. “I want to know what you liked about it.”

“It was peaceful,” Mary offered unexpectedly from where she rested against me in the back seat.

“Really?” I asked, surprised at how quickly she’d forgotten her terror at seeing the woman.

But Shirley had found an ally, and she pressed the advantage. “Yeah! That’s it. It was peaceful. Didn’t it feel wonderful taking communion?”

Tom turned on the car but didn’t make a move to drive away. “Wonderful? I don’t know about that.” But I could tell by his voice that something about the service had moved him. He clapped his hands to warm them, then blew on them so that his breath steamed out between his fingers. “I mean, I wasn’t crazy about sharing that cup with everyone.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Shirley said, pouting.

“That’s what I keep asking you!” Tom laughed out loud and clapped his hands against the steering wheel. “What in the world are you talking about?”

We all laughed, even Mary.

“Oh, Tom,” Shirley said in a wistful voice. “I don’t even know what it was.” She paused, but no one else broke the silence, so she kept going. “You guys know how it felt this past summer when we were out on the lake, drifting along in our kayaks, and none of us were paddling or anything. We were floating on the water, under a blue sky, the hot sun shining down.”

I knew what she meant.

“You remember how that felt? Like we were the only ones in the world, but there was something else too, something beyond us, something that cared?”

I felt Mary’s head nod against my shoulder.

“That’s what I felt tonight, when we took communion.” She turned toward Tom. “That’s what I’m talking about.”