Woah, this needs explaining. So last night we decided to go to Mass. I love going to Mass and it is extra special attending in these ancient medieval churches with my boys. When we arrived in Logroño, I figured we would easily have the chance to attend that evening.

The other thing you need to know about me is that I like to sit up front at church. Way up front. Here is my logic, if people give their left arm to sit in the front row at a rock concert, why wouldn’t you sit in front for the most important event, the Mass. We have sat up front for years as a family and this is very easy, because other Catholics like to leave the front empty. Last night was no different.

As we entered the beautiful Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception we gazed at the amazing artwork that surrounded us. This was the most amazing church that we have been in so far. It is full of paintings and statues that are unlike anything we can find in America.

We even met a retired Catholic priest who gave us a sudo tour of the rotunda area. He saw the logos on Gabe and Gus’s shirts and recognized us as Catholics. He also let us know that Mass would start in about 15 minutes and he was to sing in the choir. We were pumped that we had made it just in time. Par for the course, lots of seats were empty up front. Way up front.

We took our seats a couple rows from the front and started to say some prayers to prepare for Mass. About 10 minutes passed by and many more people started to fill in. There was something different though. Many of them were dressed up, most men were in suits. There was a wreath of flowers with some Spanish phrase. Some people in the pews were very emotional. It was at that moment the clues all came together. We my friends, were in the family section for the impending funeral.

Well, what do you do at this point? We were there, seated for about 15 minutes and realized that we were sitting in a reserved section to attend a funeral for a young woman that died too soon. Blaise whispered “Papa we are totally in a funeral.” I responded with “when unsure always double down.” I started to melt in my seat. I was red in embarrassment, but I didn’t want to compound that embarrassment by getting up in front of everyone to move. Then my savior arrived.

A man in a suit instructed us (in Spanish mind you) that this area was for the family and we needed to move immediately. Not protesting, we all got up and started to move. No sooner did we stand up, than did the people right behind us passionately insist that we sit back down and that we were just fine. Complete with big Spanish hand motions and all. Please realize that I do not speak any Spanish and I am getting a whispered play by play from my son which most people think is my native tour guide.

So there we sat. We listened to the crying and the speeches for about 20 minutes. It felt like they looked us in the eyes at us and figured we were some long lost family they forgot about. Masks hide a lot. Mass then started and the funeral proceeded. We prayed for this poor young woman and whatever caused her to be taken from this Earth. We encourage you to do the same.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•