On That Note

A couple of days ago I was asked to sing at the funeral of a neighbor whom I had never met. The leader of our local church unit (we call him the Bishop) knows I can sing and asked me if I would do so on Saturday. I'd be accompanied by our neighborhood prodigy, an 18 year old violinist who's played with the symphony and is now on a break from the Cincinatti Music Academy. I said sure. I never got together with the violinist but I figured that we're both good enough at improvising a song and we both know the hymn (It was "A Poor, Wayfaring Man of Grief.") well enough that we'd squeak by. Besides, I'm just lazy. Well, it was a mistake. It turns out that the Bishop never told her I was singing and she figured she'd just play an instrumental arrangement of the hymn that she had. She found out otherwise on our way there and we quickly figured out a simple plan: She'd play an introduction then I would sing melody while she played the alto line for three verses. There was no way I was singing all seven.

It was a simple graveside service. There was a prayer and then we performed our little extempore number. I guess it was ok. No one said a word about it. But then, the thing wasn't about us. The family was an odd collection people, few of whom seemed to be actually related to the deceased. It lasted about fiteen minutes and then the whole family took out cigarettes and lit up while the violinist, her father, and I waited by the car, the sun beating down on us, while the Bishop and his wife talked to the family for another half an hour. I was glad to get home.