"Hail, Mary" - it isn't just for football anymore

“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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