All Saints Day Research Paper

All Saints Day fell on a particularly scorching day that year. The towering church, brimming with squirming, sweaty, students had nearly exceeded its capacity. I watched from my seat, squished between two other fifth graders, as the other classes from Sts. Peter and Paul school filed in through the kaleidoscopic stained glass doors. The time had then come for the third graders to enter. On this special feast day, third graders were encouraged to dress as their patron saint which included sporting long black robes, veils, and rosaries. As soon as they stepped foot into the building, they were dripping in sweat. Each child took their assigned seat in standard alphabetical order. They crammed onto the old rickety benches, and properly stood, sat, and kneeled throughout the duration of the mass as they had been taught to do. Although obedient, they looked miserable. As I sat down to listen to the readings, my little sister, a third grader, turned around and looked at me. She was whiter than fresh fallen snow
and swayed like the branches of a weeping willow. I remember the moment vividly. The air in the room halted, and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. The strong stench of Father Tony’s incense that he had just spread throughout the church lingered. The sound of my classmates looking at me saying “Your sister doesn’t look so good” echoed in my ears. The moment that I replay over and over is the sight of her oversized, sapphire eyes rolling to the back of her head and the thud her limp body made as she hit the marble floor, a smack so powerful it caused the priest to stop dead in his tracks. I sat in my pew unable to move. The teachers rushed over to her and lifted her slack legs above her head until the nurse appeared. My little sister was carted off in a wheelchair, that had clearly passed its prime. I sat through the rest of the mass going over worst-case-scenarios in my mind. Once the church service had ended, we walked back to our classrooms ecstatic to be out of the stuffy building.
Before I could enter the fifth grade room, my teacher, Mrs. Martin, pulled me aside. She informed me that my sister had overheated in her robe and passed out. She then explained that her consciousness was quickly regained and that she went home with my mom. I felt a wave a relief rush over me. Mrs. Martin started faintly giggling. I was insulted, how could she be laughing in a time like this? She then addressed the baffled look on my face by telling me that when my sister had awakened, she was genuinely flustered. She looked around, confused as to where she was and when the teachers told her what happened, she looked relieved. The then responded by telling them that she thought she died. She followed that statement up with “it would’ve been okay if I had died though, because then maybe God would have confused me with a saint and let me into
Heaven.”