For The Love Of Mary

When I was an older child, there were only two truths that kept me feeling that all was right with the world. The first was that I was in a Family, with a Mom and a Dad and three sisters who were younger than I. This family was a constant. I belonged with them, so matter where we moved. They were all the community that I had that stayed the same, day after day, forever. The second was that I was a Roman Catholic and so, by definition, had a huge world-wide family of other Roman Catholics who God particularly cared about more than any other people, just because we were members of the one, true, apostolic Church. With these two facts firmly in place, I knew my place on the planet as well. All was well with the world, and it was not a restricted world, because, if I just did everything these two families asked of me, which was not that hard for an accommodating youngster, both of these groups of folks would hold me safe and secure in their community of belonging, for ever and ever. I would not be alone. I would BELONG somewhere, forever.

In fact, where ever we moved while my Dad was in the Navy and in between tours of duty and after he left the services, The Family was always together. And, in every town we moved to, there was the Catholic Church, with the priests, and the church, and the nuns and the school, with different buildings and different accents or dialects in the speech, but the same Catholics. The same Mass. The same Holy Holidays. The same American views mixed with Catholic ideas about how the world went, what the world was all about. The same special beliefs, which we all knew where ordained by God the Father himself. Specifically: God the Son, the one in the New Testament, with a dove called the Holy Ghost giving his special blessing to teach all these beliefs and ideas to us. And, of course, the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary. She was always there as well.

I stood in deep, abiding respect for these two Families. I was certain that my Mother, (and sometimes my Father, too) and the Catholic Church Priests and Nuns were the Source, the only Teachers of the Truth. They were the Bearers of All the Truth about everything I needed to know to become a real person. If I just did everything they said, my life would be a) blessed, and I would gain life eternal in heaven, and b) secure, especially if I married a Catholic Man later on and had lots of Catholic Children for the Church. I mean no irony here, no cynicism, no sarcasm. I truly believed that these paths were ordained my my two communities for me, and that constancy to these injunctions and beliefs would be my earthly and heavenly salvation. I would belong, really belong, on this earth, alive or dead, forever and ever, if only I would stick to their rules. If only.

This was all the security I needed as I turned thirteen years old. In Church, I was a model Catholic Daughter of Christ. I was quiet and I apparently was praying and singing very sincerely at all times. Only I and my confessor knew that, actually, I was day-dreaming pretty much all of the time. He had assured me that these distractions were not sinful, but that I should struggle with them anyway. That I should give all my concentration to honoring God and his Mother Mary and the Saints and the Mass and other services and rituals of the Church. I do not recall ever really trying to do that....

The daydreams were really very preoccupying, and had to do with important matters at school or home that were worrying me or bothering me. Or, boys. just, boys. undefined, gray foggy area. Boys who were good-looking. Ugly mean boys. Nice boys. Boys who made fun of my height and braces and glasses. Boys who stood up for me... Or, being, or not being, popular with the kids in my class, specifically certain popular girls. Or, ways I might look better, if certain beauty products would help with acne. If special shampoos would help with oily hair. Those preoccupations were one form the Evil Distractions took. The other form was "STORIES"....

For as long as I could recall, I had told myself STORIES, at least a few, and sometimes a lot more, every day, every night until I fell asleep. These were mainly Short Stories of escapades concerning me and others or me and imaginary others, in, usually 'made-up', pretend, situations. They were endless and took up all of the time I had from morning to night. Since I had been reading books since I was four years old, these stories and scripts rarely interfered with school work or homework at all. Math was a problem. I had to turn them off for Math and really concentrate. Which didn't do much good, however, as I had no connection with numbers and their mechanization's whatsoever. I had no interest in Math, and Math had no interest in my mind, as well. Otherwise, I could blithely answer any teacher's every question fairly or very accurately and keep a Story-line going at the same time. I was a very lucky person, I thought. I could escape the world and be in it at the same time. I was actually very aware of this, I thought, wonderful skill of mine, even at age thirteen. Eventually, most of my daydreaming took the form of "Stories" most of the time....

The problems about this double life only surfaced occasionally in the school day. I had a charming habit, from age seven on, of telling these Stories to other children. When and if I got carried away enough with the plot and characters, I often presented them as being very real. These Stories had actually happened, or were happening in my life, in other words. It did not take long, in third grade in fact, for A Nun to get a whiff of this obvious transgression of mine. This Nun informed my mother, with me in a ball of sobs beside her, that I was a "Little Liar." To my mother's great credit, (guaranteeing her sainthood in my heart for at least seven more years) my mother huffily contradicted The Nun forthrightly. "Kathy is NOT a Liar. She never tells Lies. She is a Story-Teller!" I felt, all at once, that rays of holy light were pouring upon me. That the world, just as I thought and dreamed, had a place for me in it. My place was "STORY-TELLER". My daydreaming was vindicated. I could daydream forever and ever, and no one, not even A Nun, could stop me.

I did realize, though, by age thirteen, that the hard-line and ever more frighteningly intrusive Real World was encroaching upon my Pretend World more and more and more every fatalistic day by fatalistic day. All my highly developed Escapes: Reading Fiction. Writing Fiction. Story-telling. Singing Songs. Enjoying the smells and sights of the beautiful Rituals at Church (especially Incense, my favorite odor on earth). Daydreaming. Nightdreaming. All these wonders of the human psyche and spirit were mine! And yet, the REAL WORLD was coming in like a huge ocean freighter on a small river (probably the Fox River in St. Charles, Illinois, where I lived at the time). And, it was NOT a pretty sight! I was getting scared! Reality was HUGE. I was Not sure I wanted to go there! I began to pray.

Now, before that time, I had prayed, of course. All we Catholics "prayed". Hail Marys by the hundreds, for example. Now, this 'Mary' who we "hailed", was a special case. Mary was/is Jesus's Mother. The rest of us had Moms or Mamas. But Mary was a MOTHER. She was 'THE' MOTHER. She was absolutely perfect. She had not had to have sex to have Jesus born out of her. Joseph had loved her and taken care of her anyway. Everyone had loved her, including Jesus, of course, who was God's Son on earth. When she died, she got to go up to heaven totally in her very lovely body. And, if you prayed to her, it was a Direct Line to her Son. Guaranteed.

Plus, there were hundreds of wonderful pictures of her all over the Catholic books and Churches, because she was, clearly, just as important, in her own completely holy way, as God Himself. And, there were hundreds and hundreds of huge cathedrals that had been built over hundreds and hundreds of years all because just Everyone LOVED Mary!...I loved Mary, too. She was starting to outstrip my Mom in the Mother department in some ways...shades of changes to come, that I was innocent of at the time...I prayed...to MARY....

I prayed in Church at lunch period in front of the altar rail on the left side of the front of the Church where there was, as there always is in Catholic Churches, a special altar for Mary with a statue of her on it. There was also a statue of her in front of that altar, with her holding Jesus in her arms after they took him down off his cross, when everyone thought he was dead, before he arose and all. That statue was my special focus. I would look into that Mary's half-lidded eyes and believed I saw her compassion for my adolescent confusions about life, in those sweet eyes. And then, the Miracle Happened.

Here's what I recall: I was praying to Mary, all alone in the church, when suddenly, I was aware that her EYES HAD CHANGED! That is, the statue's eyes had changed: They were MORE OPEN. Now, here's a good point to note that thirteen year old girls can easily be a mite hysterical a great deal of the time, and are, across the line, into dramatics. This was, indeed, a thirteen year olds Drama. I was excited, and felt humble, and yet, holy and blessed a whole lot!

I even told a friend, who was also plain as I was, and therefore noted for her devotion to Catholic, 'good' behavior, as I was. She was quite excited as well. We prayed together for days before the statue, waiting for another sign. We were not sure if we should tell one of the Nuns or the priest or what. We decided to wait and see what Mary wanted us to do next. As nothing ensued out of the statue's lips or in our imaginations, we eventually gave up our quest...but my obvious "devotion" to Mary had been noticed by my eighth grade class, duly noted.

The seventh and eighth graders had a club of some sort, devoted to Mary. It was called a "Sodality". We were all obliged to attend the meetings, which were held under the totally controlling eyes of one of the Nuns, who made sure the kids who were already "falling-away" from Church teachings, weren't goofing off and ruining this special experience for we truly saved Catholic believers. We said prayers and read readings that were all about Mary.
An eighth grade girl was always picked by the class to be 'President of the Sodality'. Not only was she expected to run these meetings, but she had to set a good example all year for everyone, and show true devotion to Mary.
Guess who fit both those criteria BEST in my whole class? Yes, you guessed correctly. The Daydreamer who had hysterical visions about painted statue's eyes and all: Me. The class elected Me.

I was floored. I had been elected to this great HONOR unanimously! And, my God, my God. No one had a CLUE that I just daydreamed in church ALL of the time. No one knew that I was NOT WORTHY! They all thought I was fit to be President of the Sodality! And, this meant that I WOULD CROWN THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY QUEEN OF THE MAY IN THE SPRING! This was the greatest HONOR to which a true-believer Catholic teen might hope to achieve! The President of the Sodality ALWAYS got to crown the Mary Statue on her very own altar, in front of God and everybody, with her wreath of flowers in the Spring! I was in Heaven on Earth. Verily!

This Rite of Spring was very huge and very serious and magnificent. At the most-filled-with-people Mass, on a Sunday in May, the President of the Sodality would be at the end (the Site of Honor) of a parade of all the kids in the school. She would be wearing a Wedding Dress and Veil, to show how pure she was, of course. A few little kids would walk ahead of her, throwing rose petals at her feet, as all the classes and she marched into Church singing songs, that we all knew by heart, about MARY. One little kid carried the Wreath of Flowers, real flowers, and would hand her the wreath off its little pillow. She would climb up a little white staircase. As everyone sang the last lines of the song, "O Mary We Crown Thee With Flowers Today", she would crown the statue of Mary with the crown of flowers, at the line "...Queen of the Angels! Queen of the May"! This was literally a crowning achievement for a young bud of a woman! I was thrilled to high heaven. I thanked my Mary in many prayers, pointing out to her, all the while, that I was totally unworthy, which, for some wonderful reason, she was overlooking!

First, of course, I had to run Sodality meetings every week or so, whether any one wanted to be there or not. That was hard, because most of the seventh and eighth graders would actually, naturally, prefer to be outside for recess, flirting and fooling around and playing ball games and so on. But I was so sincere, and tried so hard to please them all with new approaches and ideas, that most of them were at least a mite respectful, and didn't give me or The Nun too hard a time....and so the fall and the winter passed....

My own Mom, of course, had cried with happiness with me when I told her the news. As I remember it, this was the truly last time I ever felt so bonded with her as my precious Mom. By the time I started high school, she was already moving into her own problems and life passages full-steam-ahead, and we grew apart like ripping layers of wood off a living tree. Painful stuff. But, in my thirteenth year, she was still my biggest fan and my champ, all rolled into one...she really got into the Crowning of the Blessed Virgin Day big time, as well...

She designed and sewed for me, a truly lovely, modest, and very flattering heavy silken white dress - my first formal gown, really. She bought a great and simple and feminine veil, and a white pair of pumps for me. I practiced wearing all my gear and climbing stairs quite a bit, so that I wouldn't literally fall-down on the Job! I already knew all the songs, and Mom and I even sang them together and timed my steps to match the rhythm of the music.

The BIG AND HOLY DAY finally came. The Church was packed. I looked pretty great, for an awkward, tall, skinny, acne-pocked, glasses-and-braces gal! I was very happy, and very proud. I had thought about Mary and me quite a bit all year. I felt she understood my deal pretty well, for a somewhat imaginary presence in my life. She seemed like a Lady I could actually talk with at any time, should an occasion arise. Me and Mary were close...

I walked up the aisle just right. I sang quite nicely. I behaved in a dignified, lady-like manner. I did not stumble in my new pumps, not even going up the stairs. The kid gave me the wreath from the pillow. I took it in both hands, and climbed up the stairway to heaven where Mary stood looking sweetly down at me. I held the crown over her head. I placed it on her head at just the right point in the music. And then, softly, but so she could hear, I said...

"Mary, you know I am not worthy. I daydream all the time in Church. And, Mary, I'm not going to stop being a Story Teller." Then, I turned, looked out at the congregation, and descended into the rest of my life.