Aunt Alice warned me that Jake wanted to pay me for singing at Vika’s funeral.

“You know he doesn’t have to pay me,” I protested. “I’m glad to do this no matter what.”

“You let him pay you!” Aunt Alice chided. “He’ll be insulted if you don’t take it.”

Which, of course, I knew. I wouldn’t dream of insulting Jake like that. Even when gratitude can’t be quantified, there must be a gesture. It must be solid. And it must be accepted.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to Jake at the funeral. It wasn’t the time. I was not inside the grief. I was there to do a job, provide a simple service, add something to the beauty that can be found in good-bye. So I stayed in my place. Unobtrusively obtrusive. Background soundtrack.

Jake approached me on Sunday as I was sliding the hymn numbers into place on the board. I turned with a smile, the smile I can’t help in the warm-welcoming of Sacred Heart Parish. He thrust an envelope towards me, pulled me in for a hug, and kissed my cheek. His eyes looked a little red as he thanked me and I offered the most graceful response I could muster. Knowing what was in the envelope and not wanting to be tacky, I tucked it in my purse without opening it.

After Mass, I went down for coffee instead of packing up my guitar and sneaking away to run my weekend errands. I sat with Aunt Alice and Daisy and the woman whose name I never learned but who I hug during the Sign of Peace. And Jake. Aunt Alice chattered as she does — delightfully unceasingly. When she left to get a refill, Jake leaned into the gap.

“I want to thank you again.” His thick Polish accent made me drop my ear towards him. “You did such a good job.” A pause. “Is it enough?”

The mind quadruples and quintuples layers of thought when confronted with an unexpected, unthoughtof question. Somewhere I wanted to say, I don’t know, it didn’t occur to me to check. Part of me wondered what would happen if I said no, it’s not enough. I wondered what kind of people say no. My brain raced to decide if I should act as if it was too much for the little-big thing I did, to attempt a guess at an amount that could be anywhere from three dollars to three hundred.

The strange-awkward social graces a person acquires came to my rescue.

“Oh, absolutely. Thank you.” And I hid within a styrofoam cup of muddy Church basement coffee and Aunt Alice’s resumed bubbling stream of gossip.

They call me their Singing Angel. We have the most undefineable of relationships. The one clear relationship among them is Auntie Alice, my grandmother’s sister. But the rest are just the parish women and men. And I get up once a month to lead the singing. I put my heart into it. At first, it was because I love to let my voice soar across a high note and know that it is clear and strong and reaching. And because I like to do things right. But now it’s for them too. Because I am their Singing Angel.

But you see, Jake’s wife died on Sunday. Yesterday, I suppose, for whatever yesterday means in grief. And the funeral is this Friday. And it would mean a lot to Jake if I would sing at the funeral. It’s inconceivable to refuse. In all the realities in all the multiverse, this Friday has one option. I didn’t know his wife. I don’t know what his favourite songs are and he might not be able to articulate a preference right now. So it’s up to me to find my strong voice in the midst of grieving. To sing these songs of comfort for whatever they can offer in this. The songs break me down at the best of times, and I don’t know how to walk into a room full of grief and pull out my guitar.

I have to believe that God is sending me to make a difference. That I will be an instrument of comfort. This isn’t about me; it isn’t about my struggle. This isn’t self-pity. This is the prayer of a singing angel who must keep her voice.