And neither have I wings to fly

Tuesday morning, we went to the church to pick ceremony music, which will not be including "Here Comes the Bride" or the typical "Wedding March." Since we're not having a full Mass, we don't really need that much - just the beginning and end, an Alleluia, and a psalm. (And we're sneaking the "Ave Maria" in as a meditation song.)

Because the church had a funeral that morning, and we had an appointment with a limo company, we kind of rushed through the whole thing: the assistant organist played us "Trumpets Volontary" and the recessional that goes with it, played a version of "Alleluia" that I know from my long tenure as a Catholic, and played a psalm that I'd also heard before. I kept asking whether he knew this or that song we'd done in choir, but he always said he didn't, and that they, as choral pieces, wouldn't sound right as marches on the organ, so I gave up. All sounded fine anyway, and we were putting our coats back on, when the principal organist came in with a copy of this other psalm they had mentioned.

She handed the sheet music to the assistant organist, and he began picking out the notes on the organ and singing the words in his awkward falsetto. As soon as he started playing, I looked up and interrupted: "I want that one." And then I began to sing along, with different lyrics, and nearly started crying. The tune was the same as "The Water is Wide," one of the songs we sang in choir circa 1994, and probably the last song we, as SDCC alumni, sang for Polly when we went caroling outside her house just weeks before she died. I still remember her watching us through her picture window, a wavering apparition, and how our voices wavered as well as we finished the song before walking around the corner and collapsing on the sidewalk to cry.

The lyrics that I know are not for weddings: they refer to a lost, or faded, love. And I still don't know what the psalm lyrics are; I took a copy with me, but have been almost afraid to look. But regardless, we're having it as our psalm - even if no one but me, my dad, and Dougan understand.

I don't doubt that there were angels - at least an angel - watching over me in the church that day.