We genuflect and then slide into the last pew. My father reminds me, as he does each week, that he cannot kneel. I nod. He sits and leans back, crosses his legs at the ankles and folds his hands in his lap. Leavened each week is his belief that every day might be his last chance. It bakes and rises. It is nurtured with furtive prayers. This much I know. Every word he attempts to confide in me comes during the hour in that pew each week. I wait for him to unlock a mystery I have wanted to know for my entire life. But every time he opens his mouth, what follows is a series of false starts. He is the patron saint of duty. He will show up as long as he has breath. God reads his mind and reads his heart, but I can know only what he will tell me. When he rises to receive communion, I walk behind him as he heads toward the altar unsteadily, and with great effort. He holds out his large and gnarled hands to receive his Sunday bread. After Mass is over, he tells me that he sees so many people he doesn’t know. Why is that? he asks. He adds that he couldn’t hear a single word that the priest said. Or didn’t say.
Attending Mass with My 90 Year Old Father
Michelle Reale is the author of several poetry and flash collections, including Season of Subtraction (Bordighera Press, 2019) and Blood Memory (Idea Press), and In the Year of Hurricane Agnes (Alien Buddha Press). She is the Founding and Managing Editor for both OVUNQUE SIAMO: New Italian-American Writing and The Red Fern Review.