Transubstantiation

Allowing for lingering bitterness based on the knowledge that this event could have easily waited until Germany had reached something approaching herd immunity, I’d say the first communion went as well as it could. Even though two families from our group showed up to plump up the crowd, the church was still pretty empty, so I’m not worried that we’re going to turn into a super-spreader event. I only wish the people in front of us had stuck to the seating charts. When I knelt during the service, I was well within 1.5 meters of the guy in front of me. And no, even though it was a first communion event, I could not bring myself to go up and take communion, even if just about everyone else who could, did.

Still, it was nice enough. I mean, if you didn’t know that commonly in Germany you have a house filled with neighbors and distant relatives, then it went great. Noah got gifts and cash, which he’s investing in Lego and had Facetime and telephone chats with his grandparents and godparents. It worked. We grilled hamburgers and had a pretty amazing cake.

If anything – as with everything – the lack of Colin cast its usual shine on the event. We discussed briefly how we would have gotten him there had he still been alive and using assisted oxygen. I winced ever so slightly during the intercessions, when each of the children put forward a prayer and, whether by design or coincidence, Noah made the prayer for those who are already dead.

And then night-time came and I insisted we keep up with our semi-regular tradition of reading Harry Potter before bedtime, because the kids have never read the books in English and I’ve forgotten most of the details of the books. We’re towards the beginning of the sixth book, and there came a reference to Harry refusing to take meals with his relatives because he was still so much in mourning at the death of his godfather.

Noah noted that a person would die after refusing to eat for two weeks.

Without really thinking about it, I countered that not taking meals doesn’t mean not eating, it just means probably not sitting down at meals with the family or eating less. It happens when you’re mourning and then, with maybe a half second’s consideration, I threw out there that I pretty much did the same thing when Colin was sick and lost a ton of weight.

The children took that in for a minute. Noah said he never knew and hugged me. Emma said she’d had the same experience, but had never had much weight to lose.

So, there you go. Noah is a step further into the Catholic Church, we all, hopefully, avoided the virus for yet another day and, as always, Colin was with us, in one way or another.

(I would share a photo, but the port I need to connect the laptop to the camera is, sadly, kaput)