honeydunce

Some may say these days we are too connected. That technology allows us to be anywhere and everywhere,
to find any person we are curious about, to put ourselves out there in playlists and blogs and instant messaging.
Sometimes I’m one of those people. Tonight? I’m not.Technology can beamazing. It can rock you back on your
heels and make you marvel and bring tears to your eyes. At least that’s my situation currently.

Here’s the background to the story: my paternal grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher. He built his own
church, preached there, and had a consistent congregation with him. Up until the age of 7, when my grandmother
passed away, I sat in the front row of that church with relatives–between my father and my sister. My dad would
sneak me Certs from a roll in his blazer pocket, and the testifying would scary me something fierce. I watched
the same aunt who taught me to roller skate shout in tongues and raise her hands. I watched others turn and
kneel to the pews and weep while they prayed loudly. When my grandmother was sick with cancer,
they brought her in a hospital bed, and some people prayed over her and I remember one man fainting.
I watched relatives sing praise, watched my grandfather kick and shout and come down the aisle, face turning red as he summoned the spirit. Yes,
it scared me. And yes, it colored my experience with organized religion forever. I could never sit still in church
after that–if the service was calm and quiet and organized, then I couldn’t respond to it. I felt awkward,
uncomfortable and scared. Though the atmosphere of my grandfather’s church scared me as a small
child, the chaos of that makes sense to me now, feels almost comfortable. It is what I remember.

My grandfather passed away about six years ago. I haven’t heard him preach for much, much longer than that.
Since I was a kid. On my last trip home, my dad gave me a website to an archive of sermons. There, in
the archive, was a link to my grandfather giving a testimony, and a song. 4 minutes and 11 seconds of his
voice, his power–this man who could preach himself into raw shouts. I’ve been listening to it over and over again,
in tears. My heart feels crazy. I miss him, and that time in my life…it’s so long ago and hazy now, but
right there when I listen to him. That feeling of being overwhelmed, of witnessing this indescribable
power. It makes me bring my hands to my face and sob, and I can’t explain why. I will never be able to give
it words because it is beyond my language. It’s the tucked away room in my heart that opens so rarely–a space
I can’t force myself into. It’s only revealed in the unexplained realm of experience, memory, connection, fear, and love.

I think about my family, and about how much I know of them, and how little I know/will ever know. Thinking I
will live my life unaware of some things, and I will live with the features before me–that the line
leading back is something I’m a part of and extend from. I listen to him and think: this is something I witnessed.
I think of the songs the goosebumps would give me, and I think of who I’ve been and who I am. These things
they are connected. I’m tangled in that thread.

I think about his funeral. It was the first time that all the grandkids had been together in years. We sat in a
row together and I leaned against my cousin’s shoulder, tired and devastated and chest shattered. Thinking
of my father and worrying about him. We all stood in the front together and each held a candle, and then my
grandfather’s brother and his wife stepped up and sang together. He played guitar. My cousin and I looked
at each other and he squeezed my hand. “My god the sound of them brings me back.” I nodded, because it did.
We both started crying harder as they sang this beautiful twanged and practiced harmony, a memory breathing
before us. I remember this more than anything else about that day.

I sit here listening to my grandfather shout and sing and my heart feels like it’s fighting to surface, as if
hearing its name called. As if wanting to answer.