The Wooden Bench of Tram 28
Anyone who has ridden Tram 28 as it screeches up the steep cobblestone hills of Alfama knows the sensory overload: the smell of roasting sardines, the clatter of the iron wheel flanges, the wash of laundry flapping between balconies.
On a rainy October evening in 2021, I sat on the rear wooden bench near the conductor's bell. As the tram lurched around the sharp bend near the Church of Santa Luzia, my umbrella tip caught on something metal lodged between the floorboards.
I wedged it free: an antique five-decade rosary made of sterling silver and carved olive wood. The beads were remarkably flat on both sides, polished down by decades of thumbs sliding over them in rapid devotion.
The Silversmith in Baixa
The following morning, I took the artifact to Senhor Manuel, an eighty-four-year-old silversmith on Rua da Prata in downtown Lisbon. He examined the crucifix through his brass loupe.
'This stamp,' he said, tapping a microscopic mark on the back of the cross, 'is from the Porto guild in 1918. Look at the wear on the fifth Sorrowful Mystery bead. Whoever owned this spent years praying through disaster—the flu of 1918, the dictatorship, the colonial wars in Angola.'
He handed it back to me. 'In Portugal, young people think religion was just dogma. But for our grandmothers, this was their telephone to sanity. When the postman arrived with telegrams from the front lines, the only thing that kept their hearts from bursting was these thirty grams of silver.'
Carrying the Chain Forward
I advertised in local newspapers and posted notices in parish churches across Alfama, but no owner ever claimed it. It was too old; its original owner had likely long crossed into eternity.
I carry that rosary in my handbag today. I am not an orthodox churchgoer, but whenever anxiety grips my throat before an important trial or a family crisis, my fingers find those worn wooden beads. I borrow the courage of the Lisbon woman who held them in 1918.
Solas Haven is our modern silver rosary: an eternal chain connecting every trembling soul across the centuries. We are all holding each other up in the dark.
Related Memoirs & Chronicles
Is there a letter lingering in your silence?
Do not let your unsaid words weigh down your heart. Release them to the eternal living constellation of Solas Haven.
Enter the Sanctuary & Release a Star