Laughing in the Pew

My brothers and sister and I all have corporate memories of Mama, the ones that we will tell and share together, and recognize with just a few words, and which will elicit much joy in the retelling around the table for all the years to come.

But it's the private ones -- the ones I am sure each of us have that don't involve the others -- that have become like little gifts in shiny boxes for me.

Mama and I always sat together, flanked by Daddy (on her right, closest to the aisle) and my husband (on my left), on Sunday mornings in our pew at First United Methodist Church, two rows back from  the 50-yard line, pulpit side, and we loved singing harmonies together. We'd tap each other's arms when we'd sing a favorite, roll our eyes at some of the newfangled ones, or old ones that have been reworked to be gender inclusive or otherwise made more politically correct. "Sing this at my funeral," we often said to one another, "and sing all the verses." Our deepest connection was music, always music, and much of that was the music of our faith.

You should know here that my mother was not especially well-behaved in church, which is why my sons enjoyed sitting with her when they were little. She'd pass notes up and down the pew, and she and our youngest son played so many games of Tic-Tac-Toe on orders of worship over the years that I feel certain they were folded them into his own personal liturgy of faith.

Anyway, you know what an eye rhyme is, right?  Eye rhymes happen when two words look like they should rhyme but don't. The Methodist hymnal is full of them, probably not unlike any other denomination's hymnals. 

This past Sunday one of these hymns was the final one in the service -- Take My Life, and Let It Be -- and it had one of these things in it. She and I stood shoulder to shoulder more than once singing it in harmony (well, as much harmony as two women of decidedly questionable voice could muster), and it was inevitable that when the eye rhyme was approaching that she would lean over, and sing loudly in my ear, forcing the rhyme....

"Take my hands and let them move

At the impulse of Thy looooooooove..."

When I got to that part this week, I braced myself for a landmine, and it came, just as I knew it would, but not in tears. I giggled a little. The tears came later -- but just then -- nothing but sweet, happy memory.