"Hallelujah" by Judie Holcomb-Pack
– a musical miracle
Talent, faithful practice, and good intentions will get you only so far.
Judie Holcomb-Pack lives in Winston-Salem, N.C., where she is a member of Winston-Salem Writers. She has won gold medals for her short stories and poetry in the Senior Games/Silver Arts, both locally and statewide. She is associate editor of The Chronicle, Winston-Salem's weekly African American newspaper, where she writes for and edits its For Seniors Only monthly section. She has had her poetry published in The Voices Project and her short story in The Underwood Press.
Author’s Talk
Judie Holcomb-Pack
I have been writing in one form or another most of my life, beginning with my first simple poem written when I was about 8 years old. Over the years I have written a few essays, poetry and short stories, but I didn't focus on creative writing until I retired from my full-time job. That is when I made the decision to join Winston-Salem Writers as a way to commit to doing some "real" writing, as opposed to persuasive writing for marketing campaigns that I had been doing through most of my career. Currently I work part-time as associate editor of a weekly newspaper and sometimes cover stories or do interviews, but I enjoy creative writing the most.
This personal essay came about as I was reminisced about a Christmas Eve service at my church sometime in the mid-‘80s. It was the first time my eight-year-old son was an acolyte. It was also the year that he questioned if Santa Claus was real, so I had arranged for a neighbor to put his gifts under the tree while we were at church. I wanted to keep the fantasy alive for one more holiday. And that led me to remember our little church choir.
Looking back, I can't believe how we ever convinced people outside our church to sing with us and how we pulled off this performance. I just know that what we lacked in voices and talent, we made up for with faith.
When I sat down to write this story, I remembered how I felt after we sang that Christmas Eve - the relief, the joy - and the story just wrote itself. That's the best thing about writing, the feeling you get when you finish a story and know that you told it just the way it wanted to be told.
