Goodbye to New York, Part 4

I loved Miracle on 34th Street until I became a New Yorker. On that first Thanksgiving in the city, for that’s when Christmas starts here, the holiday became my third symbol of New York. I love the Christmas season because everything is so happy, even the women Goodwill Santas collecting dimes from wealthy Long Island shoppers outside of Macy's during a blizzard or even in slush. It seems like everything is dying around me even while remaining so hiddenly vibrant. Call me sentimental but I cried during the Christmas All-School chapel this year, when the first graders processed down the isle with plastic candles in all their glory, the children's eyes focused intently on the outstretched arms of squatting teachers at their destination. I picked out you and Bobby and Giulia and Laurence, vicariously remembering you when you were six through these unfamiliar children, at the same time mixing future with the past and present and wondering if my children will be repeating the same holiday ritual in a few years. Then during "Once in Royal David's City," the words to a song I hear only here serenaded me and the strong beautiful voices of the thirty other people in chorus surrounded me like the timbre of a tympani drum. My eyes watered and I looked around at all the other seniors near me and saw similar tears in their eyes. We knew security was quickly leaving us and tradition slowly releasing its grip on us, ready to exclude us the next time around, though we may not be ready to let go.

Our eyes danced over the rows and rows of Trinity students in their uniforms and formal attire, and for once we did not spite the rules we loathe nor did we desire to change the system we criticize, but rather we accepted it for what it is indeed and found the beauty somehow, somewhere, in the moment. Some of us remembered the Messiah Sing-In two nights before and how we stood outside singing carols, as always, and were not ready to shed the tears we knew we would later shed over the moment. And then when Mr. Rupcich told us he would be conducting next year at that event, smiles and tears all around in the basement of that old church that only we know by heart, some happy because they will see him in all his glory, some sad knowing they will not be able to return for it. In a heartbeat the service was over and we didn't know exactly how to feel. Lost?