Today marks the first anniversary of the death of His Holiness Pope John Paul II.

I went to the Mass celebrated by the Holy Father on the Mall in Washington on October 7, 1979. I went with my friend Tom and his parents. I remember Tom’s mother was horrified at people smoking during the Mass. There were only a handful of worshippers who received communion from the Holy Father.

Monsignor Jameson told me recently that he there were far fewer people at that Mass than they expected, so they had tons of communion wafers left over. They farmed them out to parishes all over the archdiocese.

I remember hearing in math class that he had been shot. Dr. Zeleznock must have heard on the radio in the teachers lounge or something maybe, because he came rushing in all upset and told us what had happened. It was only a little over a month after President Reagan had been shot.

I remember feeling so bad for him, John Paul, as he got so old and frail. He had been so utterly strong and vibrant when he first became Pope. Especially after the Parkinsons got really bad, it was just heartbreaking sometimes to see him.

Dawn and I were planning to attend Mass on Saturday, April 2, 2005 anyway. We heard in the afternoon that John Paul had passed away, so we got extra dressed up and got to Mass early, thinking it might be a little more attended than usual. It was packed. We were lucky to get seats, in the St. Anthony Chapel, which we don’t normally like sitting in because it doesn’t really allow much in the way of views of the altar and is farther from the choir. But we did get married in that chapel, and it’s beautiful in there, so it’s not all that bad either. And Cardinal McCarrick showed up to preside. And then President and Mrs. Bush strolled in. There were secret service agents wandering all around, one stern-looking woman near us.

I’m into woodworking now, and there was this cool article in Popular Woodworking about his coffin. They quoted the legendary Frank Klausz, who built a replica of one corner of the coffin from pictures and who said about the big pins and tails of the dovetails: “It was easy to tell nobody measured or used angle gauges.” The author of the article Kara Gebhart Uhl followed up all sorts of leads in Rome but was unable to find out who built the coffin, beyond being “made by Vatican Museums’ restorers and conservators.” Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, the Holy Father’s personal secretary, maybe knew something but wouldn’t say.