Fabric of You...

"Does this seem smaller to you? Like the roof is lower?"

"Yeah."

"Weird. It's not like I'm taller than I was."

Thinking about the funeral. And not just the funeral but everything around it. But not in the grieving way. Or at least not in the specific grieving for Mom way.

The conversation above happened when we were walking from the church sanctuary over to fellowship hall after the service. The same walk I took when Dad died, so I had done it as an adult, and I did it a lot as a teenager, and though I might be wider than I was then, I'm not any taller. But the hallway felt really small. The roof really low. The walk really short. It was an odd sensation.

Being in the church is always an odd sensation. And when I say THE church I always mean Ridgecrest. We attended First and Valley for small bouts of time, but Ridgecrest is THE church. It's the one I was born into, the one I spent most of my time, the one I was married in. And it's the one the others spun off from once upon a time.

That was what we Ridgecrest kids always held on to. First and Heights had more money, especially First, Valley was newer and had a really beautiful building, but Ridgecrest was there first. When we went to camp and the old cabins were named for the founding families that started it, Ridgecrest Families were featured prominently. Sure, First might have raised the money for the new dorms, but they would always be called that, the new dorms. The named cabins? Those were ours.

When you are broke you tend to hold on to history and pride a little tighter.

But Ridgecrest was home. I think I was still too shell shocked at Dad's funeral to really take it all in. This time, because of time, I wasn't as foggy. And maybe because I really believe that that was the last time I will be there I paid a lot of attention. It was all so familiar. Home in its own way.

I told my nephew I used to count the woodens slats in the roof, Larry our minister at the time, had certain words he would always use, verbal tics, and when he would say one I'd start counting the other way. Brian told me he would count the stained glass in the lights and windows. We both realized that we should have had a good indication that we weren't really meant to stay at that point.

I also looked at the books in the church library. There were ones that were old when I was a child that were still there. At one point in time I could have told you how far I had read in almost all of them. We spent so much time at the church while my parents were doing various things and if I didn't have a book with me I would pull one off the shelf and read it. There were mostly devotional books but a few fiction. Christian fiction. The bar is fairly low on what good religious fiction is. People are so desperate for message books they will let the quality slide. I read a lot of really terrible religious fiction books growing up.

There were changes as well. Where the library is the other half of that room used to be wide open, it was the original fellowship hall, long before I was born, but now it's closed off with walls and doors to make it private classrooms. What was the stage and storage area in the current fellowship hall was taken out and a big new kitchen put it probably 20 years ago now, but it still seems new to me because it wasn't there when I was growing up. We had the hallway, galley kitchen and we all spent a lot of time in there, getting communion ready, making coffee for potlucks, eating pizza with the youth group or preparing snacks for VBS.

The church is filled with memories for me. It's a big part of where I grew up. It's a big part of my growing up.

Good and bad.

And at Mom's service my Aunt Carol (Mom's best friend) talked about the first time she attended, meeting Mom and Dad as they taught the Young Married's Sunday school class. Thinking about Denny and Carol being Young Marrieds made me smile. And, of course, I don't think they could have had better class leaders for a good marriage example.

My sister-in-law also talked about first meeting Mom and Dad as they were greeters the first time she came to Ridgecrest. And then about how Mom would call her on Sunday after she and John were first married and tell her that they really could use her in the nursery next Sunday. And she did that until they came back to church regularly.

Carol also talked about how Mom and Dad started the church. How Mom hadn't really wanted to work on getting a new church established when they moved to New Mexico but had been called to do it anyway. She also talked about how Mom only demanded one thing from Dad and that was that they would go to church.

Now, I happen to know that she also said he had to stop smoking and he couldn't drink but once a year or so. My mother might have given the advice that men don't change, but she still believed in making a few alterations as needed. Though to be fair, Dad didn't change. He wanted to do whatever would make her happy. That never changed.

As I talked to people before the service and after it, there was the recurring theme. Mom (and Dad) had been instrumental in establishing the church. She had been part of the fabric of church life. She had touched a lot of lives through the church. It was her great joy to have raised her family within those walls.

And I smiled and thanked them.

And wondered how many of them knew I left at 18 and very rarely looked back?

I also spoke at her service. I talked about what a great woman she was. I talked about our relationship just a bit. I also talked about how much I knew she missed Dad and how glad I was that she didn't anymore. Which I know that 90% of the people in the congregation took to mean she and Dad are together in heaven right now. But that's not what I said.

I didn't say anything about her religion at all. Though it was a huge part of who she was. It's just not who I am. I bowed my head when the minister prayed, out of respect for those around me, but not because I thought he was talking to god. In fact, when ministers pray I think even they know they aren't talking to god but are talking to their congregation. Mini sermons. But I can have respect for my mother's beliefs and not take them on myself. I've had years, decades, of practice.

It was hard to leave the church. It was woven into the very fabric of who I was. My parents started that church. My first friends were all members of that church. I still have people I grew up with in the church that I am friends with today. A large contingent of my family believes the teachings of the church. And they pray for me. Which I think is sweet of them and I hope it makes them feel good. It's not going to change things, but I do honestly think it's nice that they still try. Even if it's a little bit condescending at times. But that's okay too.

And I talked about it when Dad died. There is great comfort that can be had when someone dies if you believe you will see them again. It makes you feel better to imagine a big grand reunion. I don't have that, though my brothers and sisters do. I have what we had while they were alive and that's all. And, for me, that's enough.

I have a lot of memories of the church, and of camp, and of countless bible studies and youth group rehearsals for tour, and bible bowl competitions and time on the bus and lessons and sermons and more than a few "Listen here, young lady" lectures. It was part of who I was. It's still part of who I am. I love those memories, well most of them anyway. I have been able to pick and choose from the lessons and apply them to my life even now.

My mother's entire philosophy of not abiding by rudeness had a religious component for her, it doesn't for me, yet I still practice it. She believed in being kind to strangers because the bible told her to do it, I believe in being kind to strangers because it's the right thing to do. I practice a lot of what she preached, I just don't do it to get into heaven later. I do it to make the world around me better now.

Walking down the hallway in the church it seemed much smaller, but it was the same.

I have just outgrown it.