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| The San Fernando Cathedral |
After the world's quickest photo op in front of the Alamo, we ate lunch at Chris Madrid's then made our way back to the hotel. The kids decided they had to go for another swim in the exceptionally warm heated pool and Ray was happy to take them. I just can't swim in December, so I decided to take a walk around the city by myself.
A few steps outside of the hotel, I found myself heading back to San Fernando. I wasn't exactly sure why, but I wanted to sit in the cathedral and be still for a few minutes. As I crossed the main plaza and made my way toward the cathedral, it dawned on me that if I wanted to spend a few quiet moments inside of a church, I should head for my grandma and grandpa's church, St. John's Lutheran, instead.
St. John's Lutheran had been my True North in Downtown San Antonio for the past few years. The hotel we usually stayed at was right next to St. John's so I had learned to navigate downtown with St. John's as my starting point. We were staying at a different hotel this year, but I could see St. John's from my hotel balcony, so I felt like I knew exactly where I was.
I took the long way to St. John's, enjoying my quiet walk and soaking up as much of San Antonio as I could. When I finally arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's church, I found the doors were locked. Disappointed, I crossed the street and snapped a few pictures of the church.
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| St. John's Lutheran Church |
I always look forward to visiting Grandma and Grandpa's church. St. John's was where they were married, baptized their babies, grand babies, and great grand babies, and celebrated their 50th anniversary. It was so much a part of my grandparents' life, that when I'm there I feel like they still are too.
I took a different route back toward the hotel, soaking up the sights and sounds of what has to be one of the friendliest cities on the planet. I still wanted to spend some quiet time alone, so I found my way back to the San Fernando Cathedral.
When I stepped inside, the cathedral was quiet. There were only a few people scattered throughout the pews. The light was soft and golden. I sat down on the end of the last row and felt my neck and shoulders relax. I had been walking for quite a few miles in the crisp December air. It felt good to be warm and still.
After a few moments of silence, I noticed a small group of people gathered around a grand piano at the front of the cathedral. I didn't remember the piano from our morning visit, and thought this was definitely a huge organ kind of church. Perplexed, I began paying close attention to the group around the piano.
It was a small group of only seven or eight. Having just been at a wedding the weekend before, my first thought was that these people were discussing specifics for a wedding ceremony. Except, this group of extremely fair skinned, blond haired people just didn't seem like they would be getting married in a church in downtown San Antonio that conducted almost all of its services in Spanish.
They milled about, speaking quietly around the piano, and then one of them sat down at the piano and began to play. The acoustics in this cathedral were absolutely amazing. Each piano note sounded clean and crisp and the tune sounded familiar. Then, the small, fair group began to sing. Their voices were so ridiculously beautiful, that as they echoed around inside of the sanctuary, it sounded like a band of angels singing. Absolutely Heavenly.
And, although the tune was familiar, the words were not. In fact, they sounded quite foreign.
Confused, I listened to the song, but it wasn't until the choir stopped singing and I overheard their director speaking quiet English with a thick German accent that I realized they were singing Christmas songs in German, my grandma's native tongue.
I was sitting in a mostly Spanish speaking Catholic Cathedral in downtown San Antonio, where, on a Wednesday afternoon, there was a small choir, gathered around a baby grand piano, singing Christmas carols in German.
I had gone to St. John's looking for my grandma. She had found me at San Fernando's.
As I walked back across the Main Plaza towards our hotel, I could still hear the echoes from the choir inside the cathedral and I tried to process the events of the afternoon. I have no idea how or why these things happen. I don't know how to seek them out or pretend to understand exactly what they mean.
What I do know it that Grandma and I have always had a special bond that wasn't broken by her death seventeen years ago.
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| Our final stop in San Antonio, new flowers for Grandma and Grandpa. |
Go where your heart tells you
And pay attention once you get there
You might be surprised by what you find.
