Rosary for Rosemarie

Muff once took me to the Sacred Heart Chapel at Clarke to experience a rosary. I tried to follow along, but it was difficult to stay awake because I'd been up til the wee hours of the morning memorizing lines and direction for a play I was in at the time. So, drowsy, I watched as the chapel seemed to transform into something luminous, with Muff and several nuns almost glowing as they recited Hail Marys and Our Fathers.
Flash forward to last Sunday, when my dear friend Jenny Zappala and her delightful mom Dixie came to their parish church, St Louise in Bellevue an hour and a half before mass to say a rosary with me for Muffs soul, now that she's passed beyond this veil of tears.
Muff would have laughed, I explained to Dixie and Jenny, to see me struggling to do a proper rosary in her honor. She knew what a klutz I was during mass, never knowing when to kneel, or stand, or sing or recite a response to the priest. Yet she also would have been touched and glad, I think, that I made the effort. She would have known that I'd risk looking like a dork in a huge Catholic Church because I loved her so very much.
At any rate, Dixie brought three pages of written instructions for us, because apparently she and Jenny hadn't actually completed a rosary for a long time. So there we were chanting hail Marys and Our Fathers and beseeching God to let Muffs soul sit at his right hand and be glorified. Jenny had a grief counselor from the church come and talk to us, and she lead us in a separate prayer, and was wonderfully comforting.
Then we attended evening mass, and the church was full of young people, the elderly and families, and full as well of song. This was a church that celebrated mass by lifting their voices to heaven! It was glorious and beautiful and I loved it. I also discovered that Jenny can sing like an angel! Who knew? Muff couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, bless her, though she was so talented at everything else she set her hand to. But she used to take singing lessons at Clarke, and learn to hear herself sing so she could discern if the notes were sounding right. Sadly, I think she also had a tin ear,or was tone deaf. That never stopped her from singing along with the Chieftans or the Irish Rovers when we were listening to their folk music.
We were joined at mass by Jenny's father, the witty Chuck Zappala. Jenny and her hubby Alex are joining her parents for a huge trip to the Zappala birthplace near Sicily, Italy next week, where Jenny and Alex will be staying for 2 weeks and Chuck and Dixie will be hanging out at the Zappala dairy and noshing on great cuisine with the Zappala clan for an entire month. I wish them great joy on their trip, and I hope meeting the Italian branch of the family is fulfilling and wonderful. I also hope they bring back great recipes for Alex to make and try out on those of us stuck back here in the USA.
Anyway, Muffs name was said in special intentions during mass, and Jenny and I lit a candle for her. I tried not to cry, but I was, of course, a sodden mess by the time we left the church. Yet I felt more at peace than I have since I picked up the telephone that awful Saturday morning and heard the news of Muffs demise. I felt that what Dixie told me after mass was true, that Muff would be my guardian angel now, and watch over me and my family.