If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name Part 13

Luckily, the pilot was a really good pilot and he knew it. He got us level and moving forward (and up and down and a little sideways) all the way to Juneau. Thank G.o.d I had my rosary. I pulled it out of my coat pocket and held on tight. I shut my eyes and breathed deep, saying the prayers over and over as we bobbed through the waves of wind. Then I felt a kind of calm. I attributed it to prayer. Later, the bride's sister, Robyn, who is now in medical school, told me I was probably so scared I was in shock. That's why my hands were numb and I was tingly up to my elbows.

The first time I heard anyone say parts of the rosary was when my childhood friend Meg Dougherty, all red hair and freckles, shrieked, "Holy Mary, mother of G.o.d" as the small sailboat we were in capsized in Long Island Sound. It was more swear than prayer, but I liked the music in it. I'd repeated it myself many times since then without knowing it came from a longer rosary prayer, the Hail Mary: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of G.o.d, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

Then, a few years ago, I saw a Native woman take rosary beads out of her purse on a b.u.mpy jet ride to Anchorage. As her fingers rolled the beads and her lips moved in silent Hail Marys-you say ten in a row five times as you make your way around the chain-her whole body changed from tight to loose. She was still jostled with every gust, but she looked comfortable, like the Queen of Sheba riding an elephant.

I have been wondering about the power and effectiveness of prayer for years. I pray often but in a random kind of way, and usually a little apologetically, as in "Dear G.o.d, I'm sorry to bother you, what with war, famine, and disease and all, but I'm worried about Sarah's math grades." Her grades did improve, but I wasn't sure why. I think it had more to do with extra help from the teacher than G.o.d. If you pray and then get help, does that mean G.o.d heard you? I wish I knew.

I was in the Presbyterian church once when a woman stood up and said she'd prayed for a bathtub and G.o.d had had Sears send one. She knew because it was yellow and extra long. Her husband was six foot two, and, she said, no one but G.o.d could have known this. Or that yellow was her favorite color. She said the original order had been for a standard-sized white one; they couldn't afford the custom length. She had prayed and prayed for a different tub, and then this one arrived. I had a lot of questions I never got to ask. Did G.o.d pay for it? Or even sign the purchase order? Did her mother send it but she credited G.o.d because her mother isn't usually that generous?

The one time I prayed harder than I ever had about anything-the time Becky and Don's son Olen was missing after his fis.h.i.+ng boat sank-it didn't work. They never even found his body or the boat. After the funeral, when I talked about this with Jan, she said G.o.d was doing better things for people we love than we could ever know. She quoted the Second Song of Isaiah: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, says the Lord." She said I had to trust that G.o.d is good and great.

I understand that.

I just thought that this time G.o.d must have made a mistake; he must not have heard how much we loved that boy or realized how unfair it was for him to die at twenty when there were lots of really bad old people lurking around who no one would miss at all. And there must have been at least one nice old man who would rather be in heaven than a nursing home. If Warren Price had been sick back then, a good G.o.d could have switched him with Olen. It would have been a win-win situation.

Warren had "been ready to go," Father Jim told all of us sitting around Mary Price's kitchen table a day after my return from Juneau. I was there collecting the information I needed to write Warren's obituary. We all knew that Father Jim was right. Warren had been housebound too long; he'd had a couple of strokes and had lost a leg to diabetes. Mary had been nursing him for years. This winter, just after Warren came home from the hospital in a wheelchair, Mary fell on the ice and broke her wrist and had to get it set in Juneau and arrange for one of her children to come and stay with Warren. But Mary rarely complained. Instead, she prayed. Mary goes to Ma.s.s almost every morning. Often Father Jim puts on all his vestments and says the service just for her. Hearing Father Jim and Mary talk made me want to have that kind of easy faith, the kind that is like breathing. Faith so clear you don't even think about it, you just feel it.

A few months earlier I had decided to learn how to really pray, the old-fas.h.i.+oned way, the way Christians have for over six hundred years-with a rosary, the string of prayers you can hold in your hand. I know rosaries are usually for Catholics, and I'm Episcopal, but I figure prayer is prayer. And the rosary prayers are directed to the Virgin Mary. I liked that. It would be easier to talk to a woman, a mother like me, than to G.o.d himself.

My rosary is made of blue gla.s.s, ivory, and light wooden beads with a silver crucifix hanging down the front. It looks like a necklace except I can't fit it over my head. Each bead and some s.p.a.ces in between have a prayer to match them. A pamphlet came with the rosary explaining which bead is for what. It has the prayers printed on another page, and on the back are the Bible readings that tell the story of Jesus. After four or five tries, I thought I had the sequence of rosary prayers-the Our Fathers, Hail Marys, and Glory Bes-more or less figured out. But when I got to the bead for each new Bible verse-or aptly named mystery-I was lost. I had to open my eyes, flip over the pamphlet, and find it. It broke the spell. Maybe that's why the rosary didn't work so well on the flight to Juneau; maybe I wasn't doing it right. Sure, I felt better for saying my prayers, even if it was technically from shock, and yes, we didn't crash. But it didn't feel like G.o.d was holding me safely in the palm of his hand. Instead it felt as if I was hanging on to the hem of his robe while he flew through the air like Superman. I want to feel peaceful and secure during prayer. I want a rea.s.suring answer. When I said the rosary on the plane, it was more like talking to myself than to Mary or G.o.d.

I told this to Kathy, who is Catholic, and she invited me to say a rosary with her small prayer group, so I could see how it was done. I needed help, and I had a lot of questions.

The church door was open and Kathy, Marie, and d.i.c.k, the banker, sat on two pews. Before I could ask them how to use the rosary properly, they started. The empty church was dim and plain and felt holy. I was nervous at first, but after the first few go-rounds, I fell into a rhythm of automatic responses with them. I did know how to pray. When Marie read the "mysteries," I understood them. I quit worrying if I was doing it right. With each repet.i.tion of the Hail Mary prayer, my cares receded.

When we were done, d.i.c.k read from a Thomas Merton essay about how G.o.d was in each one of us like a tiny, diamond-bright light. Prayer may not be a conversation with G.o.d at all. Maybe it is listening to that light inside you. Then d.i.c.k said we should close our eyes, breathe deeply, and say, "What is the question?" over and over again, blocking out all other thoughts. I had come looking for answers, and now he was telling me that prayer is a question? Still, when they invited me to join them the next week, I said I would.

MARY PRICE COULD have used prayer to ask for real things over the years-with eleven children and Warren long-shoring and her working as a nurse at the clinic, I'm sure they would have appreciated the extra help. Maybe she did ask. But I have a feeling she got more answers from her daily rituals of Ma.s.s, lighting candles, and saying the rosary.

Watching Mary now, running her bustling household while making funeral arrangements for her husband, serving plates of food, answering the phone, and laughing with one of her grandchildren, I am amazed at her strength. Warren is not the first loss for Mary. She has buried three sons. I'm not sure I could get up in the morning if that happened to me. Her boys were great kids. Steve died in a car wreck when he was still a teenager. Mary hoped Joe would be a priest, until he died diving for sea cuc.u.mbers a year out of high school. Warren's oldest son, Cookie, who Mary had raised as her own, died just this winter of a heart attack in middle age. Mary has practiced her faith so regularly, for so long, through so much tragedy, that she really believes Father Jim when he says of her sons, "G.o.d called them home early."

After Father Jim helped himself to coffee, he told everyone in Mary's kitchen how Warren had said he was looking forward to seeing "his boys again." The little house in the mostly Native neighborhood was packed with Mary and Warren's children and grandchildren, cousins, nieces, and nephews. I had brought a box of doughnuts from the bakery, and I realized with a quick head count that I should have gotten two. I found a chair and moved some paper plates and took my notebook out to get down the details of Warren's life. He was a Tlingit, a Raven from the Frog House. He joined the navy before graduating high school and became a signalman in the South Pacific in World War II and later a Seabee in the Korean conflict. He was proud of his service, and his children's. His daughter was in the army for seven years, and his son Russell is currently a captain.

It wasn't very hard to talk with the Price family about Warren, partly because of his age and illness and, I think, partly because they all believed Warren was in heaven now. Before I left, Mary invited me to a public rosary for Warren at the Catholic church that evening. I don't think she knew I had been saying mine, and I know she knew I wasn't Catholic. I wanted to go, I was curious what praying the rosary with so many people would feel like, but I just couldn't. I told her I was supposed to be at a school board meeting.

Then Warren's cousin, an older Native woman with long gray hair and bifocals, who hadn't said a word since I'd arrived, spoke in a light Tlingit accent. "Warren is only going to be dead once. There will be lots more meetings," she said. "You be there." She didn't look at me, and she said it the way they call bingo numbers at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall, emphasizing each word. Mary caught my eyes and nodded her agreement. Father Jim said in his loud, South Boston way, "Well, Heather, looks like we'll see you there. Seven o'clock."

This time the Sacred Heart Catholic Church was full and the lights were on. d.i.c.k was up front playing the guitar and singing with Sister Jill from Juneau. I saw Kathy and Marie in the crowd, as well as all the Price kids and family friends and relatives. Father Jim pa.s.sed out brightly colored plastic rosaries and the pamphlets of prayers that come with them to the people who didn't have their own. Sister Jill began by explaining what the rosary was.

"It is more of a meditation," she said. "The repeated Hail Mary prayers are like a mantra. The words are not as important as the thoughts attached to them. Tonight we will pray for Warren's soul and for his family-we will think of them while we say the prayers to Mary. At each large bead I will share a mystery in the life of Christ; for this service we will use the joyous mysteries, the ones that focus on the Resurrection, to remind us that Christ died and rose again so that we-like him-and Warren will, too." And then we began, a hundred and fifty voices praying out loud in almost unison. I closed my eyes and jumped in with the rest. The words became one kind of sound and one kind of thought. They were like the wind off the water. About a half hour later, we were done, and everyone sat quietly, not sure if it was okay to leave.

Then Russell, the army captain in his uniform, stood up and thanked us for coming, on behalf of his mother and the rest of the family, and he echoed something he'd told me earlier at his mother's kitchen table. "My father, like me, was in the service, and like me, he saw most of the world. He always told us that he came back here because Haines-all these mountains, rivers, and lakes-is the most beautiful place he'd ever seen. And he'd seen it all. I have, too, and I believe that."

The Catholic church has very high windows that let in light, and stained gla.s.s on either side of the altar. We couldn't see out, but we knew what he was talking about. On the other side of the double doors, beyond the muddy parking lot, the boarded-up former grocery store, the Captain's Choice Motel, and the faded, flat-roofed, two-story buildings on Main Street, beyond the dirty piles of rotting April snow, the barking dog, the teenager jumping the curb on his skateboard, and the mother with a baby in her backpack, beyond the American and Alaskan flags on the pole at the library and the wood smoke rising from the chimneys of the big old homes on Officer's Row in Fort Seward, beyond the fis.h.i.+ng boats in the harbor and the plane carrying the mail to Juneau, beyond all of it, holding us up and catching us when we fall down were the eternal deep blue sea and the mountains as old as the earth.

And then Russell said, "Seeing all your faces and hearing your voices together made me realize that the beauty in this community is not the scenery. It is right here, in the people. Thank you."

Maybe it was the rosary, or maybe it was magic, or maybe a little of both. All I know is that something big had happened. I left that church feeling light, brand-new, and filled with a whole lot of love.

And that is a way better answer to prayer than a bathtub.

DULY NOTED

Rain at a wedding brings good luck, and judging by the downpour Sat.u.r.day evening, Kenny Waldo and Linda Smith should have overflowing good fortune the rest of their lives. More than three hundred friends and relatives packed the Sacred Heart Catholic Church for the brief formal service written by Linda. Her words were practical, personal, and at times funny, with references to Chinese proverbs, angels, and all "the great and petty perils of marriage."

About twenty well-wishers surprised honeymooning newlyweds Janet and Dan Harrington with a late-night serenade of chain saws, fireworks, and song Sat.u.r.day at the couple's Lutak home. The group, led by ringleader Bill Darling, "almost caused a heart attack" with the chain saw, Janet said, but she invited them inside to carry on the day's celebration. The Harringtons were married earlier in the day at the a.s.sembly of G.o.d Church.

Amy and Matt Goodman of Detroit, Michigan, spent ten days in Haines visiting their new niece, Madeline Jane Andriesen, and Amy's sister and brother-in-law, Lisa and Thom Andriesen. Besides playing with the baby, Thom says they did all the "usual things," including a Chilkat River raft trip and a day in Skagway. "The last night we had whales in front of our place," Thom said. "That capped it off."

Dave Long and Pam Hansen are engaged. The local guide proposed to the preschool administrator during a raft trip at the confluence of the Tatshens.h.i.+ni and Alsek Rivers. Nuptials are set for August 28 aboard the Haines-Skagway water taxi, on the water off Seduction Point. The boat's skipper, Leslie Ross, will officiate.

Mating for Life

STOLI AND I SKIED out on the river flats on a bright spring day-a day so warm that we didn't need jackets, hats, or gloves. The ski trail weaves around the clear, fast river channels. At one bend we stopped, hearing the familiar call of the trumpeter swans. They sound like Christian practicing his trumpet. We stood still watching a pair of swans glide across the water like model sailboats in a park. "I have seen old s.h.i.+ps sail like swans asleep," I whispered to Stoli. It's the first line of a poem by James Flecker. I told Stoli that swans mate for life, just like people. They form pairs-or, as I said to her, they "marry"-when they are young.

Linnus didn't marry Steve until after they had built a house together and raised two daughters from her first marriage. The wedding was in their living room, with our friend Joanne officiating. In Alaska, anyone can be made judge for a day just for this purpose. Linnus wore a purple jacket and a black miniskirt. Steve had on a sport coat and tie. Joanne wore a man-tailored beige suit-pants and jacket. A handful of friends each said something from the heart about Steve and Linnus and marriage and love and friends.h.i.+p. Then Joanne said, "So, I guess you're married." And they kissed. We toasted them with champagne, ate gourmet appetizers that Debra had made, and then went over to our house for a turkey dinner. Leigh made the cake, and Becky Nash made two snails in wedding clothes for the top.

Leigh also baked the cake for another reception at our house, on a sadder occasion, following her father-in-law's memorial service. Leigh called and asked if she could borrow our big Suburban to drive her relatives to Chilkat State Park and sprinkle her father-in-law's ashes there. I said of course. Leigh's father-in-law had been living in Sitka when he died, so they had a memorial service there. He'd lived in Haines before that, and Greg, Leigh's husband, had grown up here. They wanted to scatter his father's ashes near his favorite place to kayak in the park.

I asked what they were doing afterward. When Leigh said they didn't know, she sounded brittle. She was overextended, with her own small children, plus houseguests, on top of planning this second service and her husband's grief. Greg's father was a big, booming man, a Methodist minister and an outdoorsman who had strong opinions on everything. Greg is a slightly built, shy artist. He doesn't go to church. His father's sudden death may have been harder because of what they hadn't been for each other. Greg and Leigh are my friends. So I volunteered our house for the reception afterward.

After putting fresh flowers on the table and dusting off the china cups and saucers my mother gave me when she moved to the country and decided she preferred ceramic Italian dishes, I drove to town and borrowed a thermal coffee pot from Mary Jean at Mountain Market and the arts council's cut-gla.s.s punch bowl from Mimi Gregg.

"Punch?" said Eliza, who was helping me. She raised her teenage eyebrows.

"Yes, punch," I said, a little defensively.

"Do you even know how to make punch?"

"Sure, just put some ginger ale and cranberry juice and ice in the bowl. It'll be fine."

It's easy to miss our driveway, so I told Eliza to tie some balloons to the wild roses next to the road. "Do you really think balloons are appropriate at a time like this?"

"Do you have a better idea?"