She would always nod and smile and she would say, "‘Silent Night.’ Sing ‘Silent Night.’" And I know why. We would sing the first verse, we’d sing the second verse all of us together, but on the third verse little Dee Dee Lawrence, seven years old in those days, would begin spontaneously to sing a descant. This child had such a sweet, floating, beautiful voice that when she sang that descant on a cold winter’s evening it seemed to me as if the voice were a bird. And that bird was flying higher and higher into the heavens on that sweet descant. And at some note, if it would go high enough, it would just touch the stars and all of heaven would ring. Dee Dee’s eyes would flutter, a sweet kind of fluttering of joy in the song itself, and by the time she was done, Miz Lill would be weeping and I would feel cold tears on my cheeks, too. This was the beauty of that choir, the Grace Notes. We had such talent and sweetness and faith.

On a particular year when Dee Dee was seven and my daughter, Mary, was seven, and others after singing outside, I took a portion of that choir to St. Mary’s Hospital. We were going to sing to the people who were in the wards there. There was one woman in particular that I wanted them to sing to. Her name was Odessa Williams. Odessa loved them. Odessa had been a shut-in for a very, very long time and I don’t know whether she ever heard this choir, the Sounds of Grace, but she loved them with her whole heart, this woman.

When I would visit her in her apartment, she strolled back and forth smoking a cigarette, delivering her opinions now and again to me. If her teeth were in it meant that she was upset with me, her pastor. She wanted to make sure that I would hear all the "s’s" and the "t’s" that she was saying so that I would get the full force of her anger. Usually, if this woman was upset with me, it was because of how I handled her choir, the Sounds of Grace, whom she loved dearly, like a grandmother. And on the other hand, if her teeth were not in, then I was a good pastor and she was going to gum me with her love.

I wanted the choir to sing to Odessa in the hospital. When we got there that night in the darkness, however, I had not prepared the children and that was my mistake. They came into her hospital room from the side. Her bed was stretched out in front of them. Some of the kids went around the bed, between the bed and the wall, but none of the children wanted to touch anything in there because although they didn’t know it, the room smelled of death. Odessa was dying of lung cancer and I didn’t tell the children that. They not only smelled it, but they looked at this woman, this long, dark woman lying on her back in the bed, her legs and her arms like sticks. Those bones were so long and thin, her fingers like pencils crossed on her belly. But they wouldn’t sing, these children. "Sing!" I said. "Sing carols. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

My daughter Mary who was right across the bed from me said, "No, dad. We are afraid she is not going to listen. We don’t think she will hear."

"Don’t worry about it, children" I said. "Sing and let’s see what will happen with Odessa."

And so they did. They began with "Away in a Manger" where the little baby Jesus was. By the second verse of "Away in a Manger," however, something began to happen to Odessa as she lay on her back there. The children saw it as well as I did. First thing, she opened up her eyes. She started switching her eyes left and right to find from where this music was coming. I knew that, the children knew it. The second thing was she began to chew. This old black woman began to chew, which told me, number one, that she didn’t have her teeth in—Good, good! She wasn’t going to fuss at me!—but told me, number two, what all the children knew as well, that she loved what she was hearing. Ms. Williams was chewing their music like the sweetest piece of meat she had ever eaten! The children began to smile around her because they knew that gesture.

After "Away in a Manger" they sang "Hark, the Herald Angels" and while they did, bumped up against her bed now because they liked the face of this woman. Odessa raised those long stick arms and started to direct them. She directed them while they sang. It looked to me as if she enjoyed holding the music itself in her arms. When there was a pause, when there was a silence, I looked to the end of the bed and said to Dee Dee, "‘Silent Night.’ Sing ‘Silent Night.’" And so we did.

Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright. The children sang it and on the very first verse, sweet Dee Dee, seven years old, opened up that descant. I saw Odessa’s eyes. They drew very, very wide and she looked around for the source of that voice. There it was, just over her feet: sweet Dee Dee, her lashes fluttering, was flying like a bird. Odessa recognized Dee Dee and began to direct that child. She directed Dee Dee higher and higher than I had ever heard Dee Dee go before. This round child at the foot of the bed had a voice as slender as the string of a violin. Higher she sang, and higher she sang until she did indeed make the ceiling of the hospital vanish and we had the whole stars of heaven above us, which suddenly rang with Dee Dee’s voice. She was that high, that high in the empyrean. Then Odessa brought her down. Sweet, powerful, dying Odessa Williams brought sweet Dee Dee Lawrence down and the end of the song placed her at the foot of the bed once again.

Now, I’m the pastor which means that I assumed that I was in charge. So I said to the children, "Thank you. Let’s go." Not a kid moved. They were all looking at Odessa’s face. I was wrong, and they were right. At that moment Odessa Williams began to talk. I’d say she began to preach and the kids were ready for her preaching. "Oh, you children" she said. "You my choir! Oh, my choir," she said, "You my children!" She had never heard them before, but her heart loved them. They had never seen her before, but immediately they were entranced. "You my children," she said, "ain’ nobody better than you!" She said that. They heard it. They believed it. She said, "Ain’ nobody better than you, for goodness," she said. "Nobody stand in front of you."

Then she looked everyone of those children in the eye and she said, "Children, whenever you go singin’, you look down to the front of where the people are sittin’," she said, "and you’ll see one chair open. There’s always one chair open." And she said, "You know what that chair is for?" The children shook their heads, but they waited because they knew that she was going to tell them. She said, "Children, that chair is for me! Whenever you sing, I be with you. Wherever you sing in the future, I’m goin’ be with you." She said, "You know how I can say this mackulous thing?" They shook their heads, they didn’t know, but they knew that she was going to tell them. She put her hand up and she said, "Because, I be in Jesus, children, and you be in Jesus. We all in Jesus’ hand and ain’ no one snatch one of us out of Jesus hand." She said, "We all in Jesus’ hand and no one snatch anyone of us out of Jesus’ hand." She held that strong arm up from the bed. My sweet daughter, Mary, reached and put her hands around that balled fist and kissed it. And I saw Mary’s eyes laced with tears. She had fallen in love with the woman that she had never met before. Dee Dee loved Odessa. Timmy and all the other children there loved Odessa because this is what happens with a powerful love, powerfully expressed; that suddenly you fall in love with that one. Suddenly, I say, and forever.

[Ken Medema sings]
You done captured my heart
You done captured my soul
You done made me to understand
God ain’t never let me go.

Well, that Tuesday, which was only two days later, it happened as I knew it would. Odessa died and the better part of her passed on into heaven. But her body remained. Then we had to put it in the ground. We only had one funeral home in those days that would take our people. It was Gaines Funeral Home. I tell you that because they were always closed on the weekend, there would be no Saturday or Sunday burial. In that year, Christmas Day was on a Friday and they would be closed then, too. No burial on Friday. Therefore, we decided that we would bury our dear Odessa Williams on Christmas Eve, on Thursday in the morning.

On Wednesday I was eating lunch with the family. I was busy preparing for all the services that particular year. There are so many at Christmas. And I happened to mention that Odessa had died and that we were going to bury her tomorrow, Thursday. When I said that, my daughter Mary froze with a sandwich half-way to her mouth. I scarcely saw it, but I felt the change in her. I finished my sandwich. I got up and I was going to go, but Mary said, "Dad?" very sharp and it drew my attention. She said, "Dad," looking down at her sandwich, "Dad? Is it going to snow tomorrow?"

I said, "I don’t know, Mary. I’m not a weather man and maybe it will." I like the snow, I don’t know if that’s what Mary had in mind.

She said, "Is it going to snow tomorrow?"

And I said, "I don’t know."

Then she looked at me and she said, "Dad, I’m going to the funeral." Then I thought I understood what was on her mind. She wanted to know what to wear.

We had a custom at Grace. Whenever there was a funeral we would bring the casket in and place it front of the chancel in the morning at 9 o’clock or so, so that people who were not at the wake the night before could come, walk down the aisle and at least do for a few minutes the honor that Odessa Williams deserved. And so it was on that particular Thursday, Christmas Eve, that the casket was opened. In due time, I went to the back of the church to open the door to see whether or not her family had come. I always did that as well. I was robed and prepared for the service. People were already in the church. I opened up the door and looked, and standing there on the porch was my daughter, Mary. Mary, was looking up at the sky. I said, "Come in."

She said, "Dad, look. Is it going to snow?" I looked up and it was a very gray sky, it looked very much as if it were going to snow.

I said, "Mary, I don’t know. Please, come in! Hurry."

Her mother was parking the car. I followed Mary all the way up the aisle to where Odessa’s casket was. I watched my poor daughter put her hands over Odessa almost as if she were going to touch her, but not quite. And then she took the same hand that touched Odessa’s fist three days earlier and put her hand upon Odessa’s cold knuckles, snatched back, and turned to me and said, "Dad, it’s going to snow today. We’re going to put Odessa in the ground on Christmas Eve and it’s going to snow on her!" Mary burst into tears and forced her face into my stomach just boo-hooing. What do I say? What do I say to my daughter? Those things that you love are never supposed to die. They are never supposed to go away. This is what my daughter and Dee Dee who was sitting there and Timmy and everyone else was now feeling. The world was wrong. The world was hateful.

Mary went back and sat down next to her mother in the pew. I preached a sermon that had no good effect upon Mary or Timmy or the Grace Notes children. In due time we went out to the burial place. We stood underneath the canopy and I said the words, "Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes." And when that small service was over I shook hands with the people that were there. I came to Mary.

My daughter looked me in the face and pointed to the sky and she said, "Dad, look!" She was right. My poor child, my suffering child, looked up and the snow was coming down. It was snowing on Odessa.

[Ken Medema sings]
Snow falls, gray skies
Snow falls, I cry
Come down, bury me too
It’s wrong, O Lord, it’s wrong.

I went into Mary’s room that afternoon to feel out how she would handle the service that night. You see, my Mary was going to play the Virgin Mary. I found Mary lying face down on her bed staring out the window at the snow. I said, "Mary, you don’t have to tonight."

She said, "Don’t have to what?"

I said, "You don’t have to play Mary tonight."

I didn’t mean for her emotions to be so stressed at a point like that but she reared around on me, my daughter did, and she said, "Dad, I’m Mary!" Which I suppose meant that she was also the Virgin and she was going to play that role tonight.

After dark, I drove Mary in the car to the church. The lights, the street lights were creating cones of snow down upon the streets themselves, otherwise it was all darkness around us. Mary sat beside me saying absolutely nothing. When we got to the church, it was filled with the hub-bub. People were shrugging out of their coats, little children were running around in their bathrobes. They were going to be shepherds, they were going to be wise men. They were so happy. People were laughing and making such a sweet jumbalaya of music for us on Christmas Eve. Everyone, except Dee Dee and Timmy and my Mary.

I let her go downstairs so she could robe and I took my place, not in front of the congregation. It’s the children’s service so I took my place on the right hand side and then two pews back. The service began and the children sang. Angels gathered up in front and they sang. At exactly the right moment I saw a Joseph and my Mary stomping down the aisle. Joseph was carrying a manger with a little doll in it. Beside him was the Virgin, angry, stomping down the aisle itself staring daggers at anything holy around her. Joseph put his manger down in front of the chancel, just where the casket had been this morning, and stood back behind it while my Mary knelt down and stared fierce daggers at the baby that was in that cradle. Her lip was stuck out. This was not a good time and I, sitting where I was, suffered for her. It’s Christmas Eve and my daughter is not only unhappy, she is angry. She’s angry at things too huge to be handled: at love that’s broken in half, death that comes too soon. So I watched her stare. I watched her stare into that casket, at that small little black baby Jesus.

Again the children sang. There was an angel who came and brought good news. But in the midst of that angel’s good news, my daughter reached into the manger and took the baby Jesus by his foot and lifted him out of the manger, stomped down into the congregation, turned left, walked through a door where my office was and shut the door. No baby Jesus and no Mary and no my Mary left. But the door opened up. Out of that door came my daughter, straight up, straight as a stick, proud of herself. She walked around into the chancel again. She knelt down at the baby Jesus’ manger in which there was no baby Jesus, folded her arms and grinned, proud of herself. Happy. And I had no knowledge why.

We sang "Silent Night." All the parents lit candles and the lights went out in the church. In that darkness Dee Dee Lawrence sang her descant. The bird rose through our congregation for the third time that week. That bird rose and took the roof off the church and found the bell of heaven and made it softly ring. And then down. And then down. I suppose everybody else was at peace, but I didn’t understand.

After the service I drove Mary home. She stood beside me, stood on the seat in the car, smiling, talking. All of a sudden she said, "Dad?"

I said, "What?"

She said, "Dad, that wasn’t Jesus in the manger."

I said, "I guess not."

She said, "It was just a doll."

I’m thinking in my heart, "Oh, my poor Mary. Now she has to live in realistic worlds. Nothing will be fairy tale or children stories for her anymore. She bumped up against reality."

"Just a doll," she said. And then she said, "Dad, dad?"

I said, "What?" She said, "That wasn’t Miz Williams in the casket this morning either, was it?"

I said, "No."

She said, "I figured it out. Jesus came into the world and was born here and grew up and died and then rose up and went into heaven. Jesus came and went and came and went. He comes and he goes all the time. Isn’t that true, dad?"

I nodded and I said, "Yes."

She said, "Then Jesus took Odessa Williams and all that was in the casket was a doll. It was just a doll that’s out in the ground under the snow. But Miz Williams, I figured it out, she’s with Jesus in heaven. Isn’t that right, dad?"

I said, "Right."

She said to me, "Dad, why are you crying?"

I said, "Child, because I have no more words to say to you. You are the one with all the words."

She said, "Oh, yeah. Ok. So, dad, I’ll talk for you from now on. I can preach for you. I’ll talk for Odessa."

As we drove home my sweet heart floated up to the empyrean of heaven itself. For this is true, that when a true love is truly expressed, it can suddenly create a love that lasts forever. My Mary, my Mary. Oh, Ken, play for her who loves forever.