All Souls' Day

Three years ago when we bought this apartment, we were delighted by the perfect view: Old St. Patrick's - the second oldest church in Kansas City (1875) right across the street. We watched people coming and going each Sunday and listened to the bells chime. But only for two months - at which point the diocese shut down the church for renovations.

For three years it has been just another pretty face - quietly housing a community of pigeons on its spires, but otherwise looking quite lonely. We'd see an occasional truck load of stuff going out (blue carpet) and better stuff (new lumber) going in. Each weekend the only visitors were a family that came to tend to the lawn across the street and the long skinny patch of grass on the side of the parking lot, which on the weekends is always empty. Until yesterday, an unseasonably warm All Souls' Day, when the church was finally open for business again after three long years of lying fallow.

So, with Garrison Keillor telling ghost stories on the radio, I re-potted the basil in my window sill while Sergio pulled the threads of my scarlet A off the rented costume ... and we watched the parishioners pouring out, one after another, after another, clowns-in-a-Volkswagen style.

Here comes the neighborhood!