A Brooklyn Sunday Memory

The old Brooklyn Brownstone where I used to live, keeps a Sunday morning secret tucked deep in the corner of its massive master bedroom. I sometimes wonder if the person who lives there now does what I used to do every Sunday morning. This memory trickled through my brain like warm honey today, as I caught the chorus of a church choir drifting on the wind's tail.

It is February. My mother died three days ago and the cold is etched on my bedroom window like fine French Pineapple lace. I ease it open enough to hear the branches shiver. I see my Jewish reflection; I am the blood of my mother and now, I am orphaned and left to my father, a Roman Catholic. I am the blood of my father; I have his thick hair and olive skin. I have her wisdom and wit, and no one's caramel eyes. I have his unconditional love and memories of her.

This morning, I am going to church before I follow my mother’s body down the New Jersey Turnpike. No one knows, but I go to church  every Sunday. In my bedroom.

My friends go to real church on Sundays, but I don’t go with them. I am the Jewish friend left behind to cook brunch for when they return. Knishes, kugels, bagels, lox, onions and tomatoes; latke recipes from my mother’s side. Fresh eggs cracked over sweet onion-fried potatoes and shredded Parmesan cheese, toasted Italian bread, salted butter and rich percolated black coffee, from my father’s side.

Little do my friends know that I have been to church and back. In my bedroom.

The table is set, the kugel baked. Eggs sweating, are waiting for their one-handed crack. The New York Times waits to be divided and read by my peers. I get the obits. I always get the obits first, no questions asked, but from the corner of my eye, I see perplexed second-glances peering at my unusual interest in strangers' obituaries. It's their stories, I tell my friends; little memoirs. I want to read the how, and who is left to cope and remember.

Ten bells echo from the rear of the Brownstone, beckoning me to  retreat to my bedroom. The windows have tear drops now and I open them like wide mouths ready to inhale. The sounds of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir fill my room; my backyard, their sanctuary.

I swing with the bosom of the soloist.

I tremble with the fear of the sopranos.

I clap with the Amen corner.

I belt it out with the altos.

For one glorious hour I am Black.

I am saved.

I am not Jewish.

I am gospel music.

I am mourning.

I rejoice.

By the time my friends arrive, I am revived. With mouthfuls of kugel, there is no talk with their Jewish friend about church. Dare I tell them I've been there and back? Instead, we celebrate my mother’s cooking, her quiet, disturbed life, the memoir her daughter may one day write.  The dishes are cleared, the paper neatly stacked with the puzzle on top for when I return. My friends send me across the Brooklyn Bridge to the New Jersey Turnpike alone. 

The only music I heard at my mother’s funeral was the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir playing in my head accompanied by my father’s wailing.

Amen.