In 1993, my daughter was confirmed. Among the presents we gave her was a ninety-year-old hymnbook belonging to her great-grandmother, who received it on her confirmation day in 1903. In the 1970s, as my grandmother’s mind was wasting away from the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease, my father would visit her in the nursing home in Milwaukee. There were times when she wouldn’t even recognize him. “Who are you again?” she would ask. He would read to her from that hymnbook, especially from the Small Catechism
Pages 2–3