Memories

I Wish I Was a Chorister

There was a solemn choral evening at my high school chapel, a memorial for

an elderly statesman, a student of my high school who had passed at ninety-four

years of age. There were four choirs present, but the one that had an impact

on me was the high school choir.

Forty years ago I auditioned to be a member of the some protestant choir, but my

voice could not take me there. I was stuck in this place where I could not be moved.

My friends made it, they slid through. There I was standing, embarrassed and helpless.

I could not re-audition and claim my voice was much better and that the panel needed

to revise their decision.

This is how it must have felt for those that had not passed the American Idol auditions.

Maybe I could have tried again in the next year, but I didn’t. Yesterday I watched and

heard  the teenagers pipe away. Their actions and clapping matched parts of the song.

I thought if only I had been a chorister, I would have been just like them.

At school in the 1980s, I pushed myself during Sunday services to sing as sweetly as I

could, as if to prove that I had a beautiful voice after all. I wish I could have told one of

the young ones how lucky they were to be up there on the stage and that after forty years

I am still affected by the memory.