“He was followed by 30 seconds of silence, during which every sigh toured the walls of the church.”

Now and again, in the wonderful world of reading, you stumble across a sentence that not only evokes a response or feeling because of what it says, but because of how it says it. This is one of those sentences. It literally made me stop when I first read it, hold my breath for a second, and then sigh. It also made me imagine the other sighs and stories that have been heard and held in the walls of that old Romanian church through the generations.

The sentence comes deep into a personal essay by Ioana Burtea. She’s a contributing writer at DoR (Decat o Revista), a creative and enterprising magazine in Bucharest. She usually writes about the justice system or politics, which is nonstop, hard-edged territory in Romania, and seldom lends itself to poetic reflection. But she has long been haunted by the divide between her childhood in a traditional Romanian city and her professional life in Bucharest. Finally, the need to settle her mother’s estate drew her home — to a place and memories she had long since avoided.

Burtea’s walk back through her own life is also a walk through some of the divides that run through Romania — and, indeed, much of the world. Divides of religion, class, education, aspiration. And divides of perspective and understanding. On the last day in her old city, Burtea steps into a Catholic church, where a Mass has just started. Ther priest reminds the few congregants to remember that the dead are among them. Then comes that sentence from Burtea, like prayer and response: “He was followed by 30 seconds of silence, during which every sigh toured the walls of the church.”

We all know sound travels, but I had never thought of a sigh being part of that journey. Now, the next time I return to my own hometown and the Catholic church of my childhood, I’ll visit for some silent time, and listen to the souls who have gone before.