A s I climb the stone steps and open the wooden doors, echoes of bygone years begin to ring my soul. This building may have been overhauled a bit, new paint, new doors, new windows, but I believe it remembers and keeps its past. The echoes of lives dwell in this building, echoes that belong to my past, my childhood. There is a sudden feeling of calm and awe upon entering the main chapel, a sense I’ve never felt anywhere else.

While I lived in South New Jersey, for seven years of my childhood, this was my second home. My first home being my grandparents’ home in Cherry Hill. No matter where I go or where I live, Cherry Hill will always be home. Every Sunday my family would make the trip from Fairview, NJ to Coopers Landing to attend mass at St. Michael’s Ukrainian Church. My grandparents were devout Catholics and completely devoted to St. Michael’s. They had been attending since they first arrived in America in the 1930’s from Poland and the Ukraine. To this day I prefer mass in a language I do not understand, Ukrainian, to a regular English mass. The language breeds a familiarity with both my childhood and my adult life.

As I sit in the back pew, long after mass has ended, on one of my trips from South Florida, I can hear the echoes of my past and feel the souls that have dwelled and worshipped here. I have the main hall to myself at the moment and it is peaceful and quiet. I recall running up and down the aisles as a child, after mass had ended of course, helping my grandmother “put up” the kneeling benches. It was a game and I was always thrilled to see how many I could find that had been left down. I notice that the stain glass windows have been updated and the ceiling has been freshly painted, but the echoes remain and the newness adds to their resound.

And then I hear the one echo in this chapel with 50 foot walls that tugs at my heart but also fills me with joy. It is his echo. Though he may be gone now, he is still here. The newly replaced tiles on the wall that make up the pictures of Jesus Christ glitter with the lights that are hanging from the ceiling. And they sparkle as if they know he is still here, as if they acknowledge his presence.

I ascend the stairs that lead to the seating area for the chorus, a set of stairs I climbed many times as a child. I find the bench where he stood and sang. And I can still hear him belting his praise for a Lord that gave him his life and his family; a God that brought him out of the misery of his past to a glorious future. As I sit on the bench, void of any other person for the moment, I recall him bending down to me as a child and showing me his hymn book, full of letters I do not understand in a language I cannot speak, but still understanding everything that he and his choir members sing.

The music fades now and I make my way to the edge of the choir balcony and look over. The chapel is filled with ghostly figures of people I once knew and of some that are still a part of my life. They are crying as a coffin is brought down the main aisle, the family members of the deceased follow shortly behind. And now I am back in the pew on the first floor, watching and remembering. The small choir that has gathered to sing their sorrow and admiration for him sounds tired and sad. They miss him, as do I. And though I know he is not standing with them now, I can still hear him singing and can pick him out among the choir as I did as a child.

Still sitting in the chapel that is empty except for the ghostly echoes of my past, I watch my grandmother weep, my mother weep and I suddenly feel a tear trickle down my cheek. I am not surprised to feel it as it makes its presence known each time I visit St. Michael’s. I miss him as do many others. The man who sang in the choir excited and proud to have his granddaughter sit by his side and listen even though she didn’t understand the language. The man for whom they weep now. My grandfather. He is the most resonating echo in this place of echoes. And though I cry now I smile too, for I know he’s here sitting next to me and watching over me.

Now that I live in South Florida, the trips I take to Cherry Hill have become few and far between, but I make that journey as often as I can. And I always make it a point to have a chat with my grandfather in the hall of echoes that is St. Michael’s. His echo is my echo.