From the Imagination of Dr. Nicki: Real Life - Stories I Never Knew... Part 3

Grandfather’s father was a Canter in the old country. I always thought that idea of an old country strange. What happens to countries when they got old anyway? Do they wrinkle and get dry like most people? Do they forget where they lived or lose hearing and sight? Do they get smaller? And by the way, why do people get smaller over the years? I once suggested to Grandfather that it’s because the earth is trying to pull us back to her – to get us to come home, like an anxious mother. Grandfather always laughed when I said these kinds of things. He’d grab me and hug me tight and talk about the glad, easy way God spoke through me. I never had any idea what he meant but it didn’t matter. Grandfather was love and anytime he found me more than silly I was thrilled.

Anyway – Grandfather adored talking about his singing father. As a small boy, he’d say, he would sit in the temple time after time, eyes closed, rocking to his own father’s sacred music. “Tears and gasps and blessings and celebrations of the heart,” Grandfather said. “When all else has been forgotten,” Grandfather would nearly whisper, “the world will still hear these precious songs. Yes. You too, child, can hear them. Now and always.” Then I’d snuggle my cheek right up next to him, ear to ear - and we’d rock gently back and forth together.

Once in a while, just for an instant, as we sat rocking in this way, I’d think I could hear the sacred music too. Like a faint, distant call. Hear it the way he heard it. Then I’d imagine that maybe the ancient strains were pouring like warm alphabet soup out of his head and into mine. But maybe that wasn’t really the music at all. Maybe it was just Grandfather’s love singing against my cheek.

Over the years since Grandfather’s death, I’ve many times sat in the Temple – hoping to catch of glimpse of my Grandfather’s passion. I’ve listened to songs sweetly sung from great throats of intention. I’ve stood in praise and bowed in honor. I’ve witnessed others with their expressions of ecstasy – hearing the music, the way I suppose Grandfather did.

Memories are funny things. They tempt us to follow them into the unlit places. They ask that we be bold and thorough, but all-too-often offer only shadows to lead the way.

I still have hope though. And, to tell you the truth, sometimes now, on the loneliest days and in the dankest nights, I think perhaps I do hear it a little. The music of my father’s father. The music of my faith. A faith without precepts, boundaries or hesitations. A faith that calls me to remember things I have never even known I knew.