By Andrea Lingle

The Feast of All Saints is an invitation to remember. Not just a fond reminiscence, but “a deeper, slower kind of remembering; it means remembering as a searching and finding.” (Buechner, A Crazy, Holy Grace, 60)

So, let us remember.

Close your eyes. Take three deep, slow breaths.

Imagine a veranda jutting out on a cobblestone street enclosed by a black-painted iron fence—not so much a barrier as a trellis for the potted nasturtiums and geraniums. There are hanging lights that glow warmly in the night air. The white-robed tables, by some contrivance, don’t wobble, and the chairs allow a conversation to linger over the cooling of many pots of tea.

Who would you invite here?

What would you say?

What would you tell them you have (finally) learned?

Imagine that, as you sit on the veranda, a girl in long braids cycles by on a turquoise bike with tires wide enough to be comfortable on the cobbles. In the basket, hanging unevenly from the handlebars, music is playing from some speaker or other. It is an old song. One you remember singing when your worries wouldn’t fill a bicycle basket. One you remember dancing to in your kitchen to when your worries had grown heavy enough to line your face. Because somewhere along the way, despite all of the meetings and strategic plans, you didn’t always make the right decisions. Despite the fact that you showed up every time he needed you, he never figured himself out, and it broke your heart. Despite all of the careful eating and discipline, illness stole years and friends and, on the darkest days, hope. On those days, that song could help your aching feet dance.

What is that song?

What has it helped you through?

Who would you share it with?

A soft rain has begun to fall. It drives in a trio of laughing women, probably sisters. Their matching manes of wildly curling dark hair spiraling in the gentle dampness. A smoke grey cat ambles in from the road, unhurried yet dry. You realize that late afternoon has become late evening. The journey of remembering takes time and work and patience. The waiter comes to say that the chef has made a shortbread with crème, and would you like to try some? On the house? Perhaps with fresh peaches? You dry your eyes. These rememberings don’t come cheap. You meet his gaze with a wobbly smile and a question behind your eyes.

Why a gift?

What did you see?

What do you think of me now?

But let’s leave the “whys” and “whats” out of it. Let’s just receive the gift. Let’s not work so hard to look like nothing hurts. Let’s let the deep, wrenching work of remembering carry us to places where those around us will have to help us out. Let’s take the offered shoulder and weep like it will heal us. Let’s turn that song up and dance with tears soaking through our socks. Let’s grab the hands of the laughing ladies and the braided teen and the oh-so-proper waiter and pull them along until our dancing offends the cat and the shining cobblestones echo with our joy and sorrow and whirling feet.