“Hail, Mary” -
It isn’t just for football anymore
The frankness of the priest’s prayer that Sunday morning
took me aback. He invited the
congregation to pray a “Hail, Mary” for any disappointment we may feel about
Summer Vacation, something to that general effect. Seeing as it was the first week of JULY, I found
that a bit premature and perhaps a bit fatalistic. It wasn’t my home church – because I don’t
have one right now – but I had met this priest when he was just out of college
a couple of decades ago. He’s not a
bitter little old man. He’s not a
negative, bummer person. He’s a younger
middle-aged priest who grew up in, I suppose, a regular family and had a bit of
life experience. And I imagine what you
don’t have in your OWN life experience as a priest, you must pick up a few
beauties just by listening to confessions.
But I couldn’t help wondering what motivated him to say that
prayer.
The narcissistic part of me – as minuscule as it might be –
excuse me while I dust my halo in case it blinded you – felt like that prayer
was staged just for me. I am choosing
to see that particular moment as a tip on how to cope with the stuff that was
happening both in my life and in the lives of those around me. For instance, I know three friends who had to
put their dogs “down” in the course of the last two weeks. I have lived through that, albeit just
barely, about ten years ago and it is horrible.
It’s not the how of what happens, it is that it happens and it is a grief that in my experience stood all
by itself in its relentlessness that makes it almost intolerable. So many people who walk through that end up
saying, “I will never get another dog again; I just can’t go through it.” The fact is, getting another dog may be the
only thing that heals your heart in that area.
You come to the realization that the acquisition of a canine household member
is as much for your own need, as it is for the dog’s. To the point, some dog out there needs
you. And you need a dog.
Yes. You need the
aggravation, the vet bills, the potty accidents and all that negative because
what a dog brings to the table so far blows all that off the map. On a cold winter night, a small warm body
snuggles into the crook behind your knee on the couch and rests a gentle muzzle
on you as you watch a movie. Dogs don’t
ask to pick the movie; they let you choose and just enjoy it. On a sunny autumn morning when the goats are
in the pasture next door and you are trying to get ready for work, a dog will
jump up on the couch search the view in the backyard and then bellow: “GOAT!
GOAT! GOAT!” as if you didn’t
remember the neighbor’s goats were out there.
Dogs provide a security force second only to Schwarznegger. And, dogs are excellent at character analysis: they will identify bad people within seconds;
whereas the rest of us give people a bit more time to prove themselves. My dogs have always been spot-on with their
take on people.
All that by way of
saying, I have found dogs invaluable and my heart goes out to my friends that
have lost theirs. Hail Mary ….
On a completely different level, we have lost important people
in our lives – in almost every case it has been after a struggle with extensive
illness. I lost a dear friend whom has
been one of my summer vacation travel companions for over a decade. I am feeling the sadness incrementally – I watched
a movie that had a Gospel choir in it the other night and remembered her
funeral and how “up” it was. I think of
her when I hear good music because she loved music so much and was very accomplished
with it. I think of her as the racial
tensions in this country are being stirred up by insurrectionists. She and I had a friendship that transcended
race and we always considered each other a sister. As I plan a beach vacation for the future, my
heart feels a bit sore knowing that she won’t be with us. And the next time I cook a lobster and steam
it in beer with Old Bay Seasoning, I will think of her as well. She and I taught our other friends how to
dissect a lobster to get every available piece of meat out of it. We should have made a tutorial video. That would have been a blast. I have my memories, but my memories will
never be enough. Hail Mary ….
And also most recently, it appears that I have become a
Weather Witch. There are Weather
Witching sticks they sell at the beach – and they really DO work. You mount them on an outside wall and the
level of humidity in the air impacts which direction the wood points. The wooden stick actually re-orients itself
based on weather. There are a few other
tourist gizmo’s that do the same thing.
My personal favorite is the braided yarn with two eyes. The directions say to hang him outside with
this diagnostic: “If I’m wet, it’s
raining. If I’m frozen, it’s cold or
snowing.” In my case, I seem to be able
to detect storms coming by doing one simple thing: I go to the beach.
Two weeks ago I drove out to a lake that was made decades ago
by flooding a few towns under water. I
don’t know how that happens. Did they
tear down the houses and fill in the basements and take out swingsets and
stuff? My brain gets snagged on that
piece of history every time I recall it.
There is one particular perennial that grows in my back yard which I
have tried to remove not once, not twice, but three times and it keeps coming
back. If my town was flooded, that plant
would come up from the bottom of the lake and take over the world. I’m sure of it. Nonetheless, this lake I went to is a great
place to swim and I was happy to drive out for the day. As I handed the ticket boy my entrance fee, I
saw the ominous clouds forming ahead of me.
I drove forward, hoping they’d pass.
I got my suit on, set up my lawnchair and within ten minutes it
POURED. I waited it out in my vehicle
and tried a second time to re-establish my beachhead. Nothing doing. It poured again and I said, “I give up.” Plus, sitting on a wet beach is just kind of
gross.
Yesterday, I drove up North to a state park that is a couple
of hours away. The attraction: an Olympic sized pool, and the prospect of
going into the port village afterwards and wandering around gift shops to see
what I don’t need to buy. I pulled into
the state park and asked the girl at the ticket booth, “Do you think that a storm
is coming this way?” Famous last word: “Nahhh.” I drove in, put on my suit, got into the pool
and circulated about 4 minutes before the lifeguard blew the whistle to get out
due to thunder. I thought of the “Hail,
Mary.” I also thought a few other more
profane utterances, but there were kids around.
I sat out under the shelter wondering if I should get into clothes and
leave or wait it out. I waited about 20
minutes and the clouds moved over and around us – not one drop of rain, mind
you – but thunder three times delayed our re-entry into the pool. I think the rule is you can enter like 20
minutes after the last thunder. No
visible lightning around but recently I read that lightning from a storm 12
miles away can strike where you are…. made me feel like a target. Eventually, all swimmers got back in the pool
and I went along with the day as planned:
nap & swim & shop & eat.
So, as I have been told since I was a child, “Into each life
a little rain must fall.” I’m just
keeping my “Hail, Mary” handy. You can
borrow it if you want. But I still want
to know what Father was thinking about.
Yikes.
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