A Youth Leaders' Redeeming Feature

The flip side of youth directors, the antidote to their off-the-hook behavior is always their wives.  These women are uniformly pretty, low-key, hospitable and absolute paragons of tolerance.  They have to be, or they would long ago have suggested to their husbands to 'dip your head in the baptismal font three times, and pull it out twice'. 

Fitting squarely into the above-described role was Tamara, Jason's wife.  (Jason from yesterday's post, Jason the back-wrenching masseuse impersonator. )  Jason, if you're reading this - you overmarried.  Tamara was all the above, and a heck of a singer.  This is why I felt (still feel) so miserable about hanging her out to dry one Sunday morning. 

I was in the middle of divorcing, after 25 years of marriage and five daughters.  I was miserable, lonely, angry, you know - the usual glut of divorce-driven emotions.  That I had the pastor and elders on my side was some small consolation, but I was still a wreck.  I was distractable to the point of...distraction.  The trump could have sounded, Jesus could have returned, but I swear a fly buzzing around the room would have pulled my attention away.

So one Sunday morning I'm sitting in my office, waiting for the service to end.  I'm done playing, nothing to do until the second service started.  I could have hung out in the green room with the other musicians and singers, but I had no energy for conversation.  The door was shut so people at least might think I was doing something spiritual, or at least useful, but I was playing solitaire on the computer - probably fifty games in 25 minutes.  Anything to tie up brain cells that would otherwise be rehashing conversations or spinning the broken record of guilt like a disc jockey from h-e-double-hockey-sticks. 

The sound of conversations started filling the hall, and I knew the service had let out.  I stood and strectched, steeling myself for one more round of being 'on' - talking, playing, making things happen onstage, etc.  Linda, my friend on staff, came to the door and said, "Can I be the first one to ask you?" 

"Sure," I said.  "Ask me what?"

"Where you were."

"Where I was?  When?"

"Just now."

"I was in my office...being useful.  Is that bad?"

"You weren't onstage."

"I wasn't supposed to be."

"Well, that's not what Tamara said.  From onstage.  Just now, doing a closing number."

This is how far gone I was - I couldn't figure out what Linda was talking about.  Eventually it came to me in a head-rush of recollection, complete with accompanying guilt.  Perfect.  The last song of the service was a simple chorus, and all I had to do was walk out and accompany Tamara and a guy named Joe as they led the congregation.  It was such a simple task, one I had complete control over, so there was no worry connected to it.  No worry - no emotion.  No emotion - no ability to compete with the super-charged thoughts that pretty much had their way with me.

I was mortified.  Tamara had walked out, thinking I was probably right behind her, and when I didn't show, eventually led the congregation a capella.  To her credit, she took it in stride, good-naturedly giving me a hard time about it.  Which was just what I needed, and that was Tamara - she knew what I needed.  Jason and Tamara had me over for dinner once a week for months during that time, and it was medicine.  When they moved out of town I gave Tamara such a long, tight hug that she finally said, through my jacket, "I can't breath...". 

I miss them both.