Christmas 1974
I sat here and wondered, where do I start. I have stories after stories to share. Perhaps, thinking to myself, it might somehow, someday in some way help someone. Hence, another link connects the miracle of Christmas to yet another person. And perhaps, someday, that person writes another batch of miracles that started from one Christmas season.
Mine, started in 1974 when I was 14 years old. My mom signed me up in a local church, St. Peter's in Riverdale, New York, singing every Sunday at mass. We rehearsed every Tuesday. The one who led us was a lady with a guitar. The song sheets were pages of words typed up from a typewriter. No music scores, just words on a page. She played her guitar and we sang along. I tried memorizing the ups and downs, the distance a sound carries on certain words and if it was a wiggly line that needed a wavy sound when sung. What a way to remember a particular song or how it was supposed to be sung.
I wore a pair of very thick glasses. I couldn't see without them. They were very thick. Of course, that means, when I looked at the mirror, I saw a bunch of circles in the middle of the lens and my eyes looked very small and funny.
The first song that I sung was Annie's Song, "You fill up my senses, like a night in the forest, like a ...." by John Denver. I was all into it, despite that fact that I wanted to hide because of my thick glasses. I looked ugly, I felt. So, I was always looking down and shyly sung the songs I spent the week memorizing.
I don't remember when I started singing in this choir, but it was the beginning of my passion for working my way back to singing for the Lord.
We rehearsed every week. We sung every Sunday. We practiced the Christmas songs for that year, the year of 1974 for Christmas, 1974. It was the Christmas that started my yearning to sing, the Christmas that started a chain of miracles, the Christmas that left an imprint in my heart; it was the Christmas that brought me back home years later to sing with all my heart for the Lord. We worked very hard for our weekly mass and our Christmas music. As the Christmas was fast approaching, the excitement of singing the Midnight Mass was getting stronger and stronger. I was practicing my singing whenever I could.
On Christmas Eve, I was getting ready as usual, as if I'm going to a rehearsal, I was getting ready to go sing my first Midnight Mass. My mom said no and wouldn't let me go. I told her that I was expected to sing that evening. She said no. I stayed home and was very sad. Needless to say, yes, I cried all night. I didn't sing in a choir again until twenty years later in 1994 or '95. That was when all the miracles started. At least, that was when I started to notice, Christmas Miracles do take place. Click here for the Google Map to St. Peter's Church. It is located at 91 Ludlow St, Yonkers, NY 10705