Leprechauns & Licorice
Today is my mom’s birthday, and also St. Patrick’s Day. It is a very important holiday for my family. She loves her birthday mightily! My mom is glad to be here, and she treats this day [or really, these days] accordingly. Her birthday has been known often to last a week, sometimes a month. There is much to celebrate! And we will not be limited by the notion of time, or a date on the calendar.
This is how we handle most of our holidays actually. I worked a couple winters in a ski village in Colorado in my 20s, and couldn’t come home for Christmas that first year. That’s how we got St. Augmas Day - it’s Christmas in August. There is not a Saint Augmas. She decorates a Christmas tree with “ornaments” of tiny flip-flops and umbrellas, finds a huge spread of food, and throws a party. There were watermelon-eating-contests for a while, but I think we’ve all learned our lesson. We have done that almost every summer since that one that I missed so long ago. How could I have possibly known that there would be a whole new holiday created!?!
It makes sense that today is the day she was born. It makes sense to me that the world celebrates her. The rivers and beers turn green for my mom. The world spends the day drinking and enjoying subjects like luck, finding gold, and the work done by saints. It works. Truly.
So happy Mom’s birthday! I have a cute life-glimpsing movie in my head of her. It begins in the weeds of a flowerbed, with mom in a Mexican puebla dress, all sweet and 22ish. Funny to know your mother so young, funny to see her as younger than yourself in a memory. I guess eventually we all can do this. Is it weird for y’all too?
In the life movie, you’ll find a girl who sewed costumes for the play, you’ll find a lady who learned to choose herself, and then a force committed to survival, and then a woman who was there the whole time. And so were we, and what a life to have known and watched.
She learned to be a nurse at home with Andrea, and she taught on-lookers [gawkers, really] about compassion. You’ll find in her life movie, endless road trips with Natalie Cole, lots of butter pecan ice cream, licorice, uncontrollable laughter, and springs that open windows and move with music that requires a little shoulder action. She is our mother, yes. But there are moments that she exists with us as a sister - where we all find ourselves in hysterics over the truth of who we all are, and in the joy of knowing what that is so deeply that no one else ever could. You’ll find that every song ends with hands that rinse off to “Oh yeah,” that every drive-thru window was made to be passed by in frustration, that we are a team even if we want to get out of the car, and that every moment can be made to mean more.
We’ve had our stuff, as I’m sure all daughters have with their mothers. And this is why we’re in this section, just in case you were wondering. Well partly we’re here because it’s my mom’s birthday, and I imagine her wanting to be in this section. But also, because of Fátima.
Let me start with a piece of this journal entry…
It was raining and cold when we arrived at Fátima. We walked into a place that it was immediately clear I’d have to come back to. I knew… in the place that I know things that it was Mary who greeted me. She placed over me, upon entry, a blanket of peace, and I was dry, and I was warm, and I hope that I never forget this feeling. I will come back here. I am overwhelmed by the peace found in this place. I cried the whole time I was there, and for some time after, and now again. It’s not just that you can feel a presence here, it’s that you can feel belief. You can feel the beating heart of so many billions of prayers meant for so many billions of people that have been whispered in this sacred space. It is indescribable, the flooding of goodness that entered my whole being upon arrival.
So I’m in this beautiful place, surrounded by the whispers and hopes of so many prayers, and feeling the most tangible peace. I walked slowly around the cathedral. Inside, the stations of the cross were carved - primitive, beautiful, wrought with meaning, and the majesty of the hard work that made each could be felt. Above each station, a stained-glass window depicting Mary like I had not seen her before. Young and free, this Mary was actually blowing in the wind. She looked like the hippie version of Mary. And I just melted. Outside, there are angels everywhere. Like gargoyles they sit on every piece of every building, wherever there is enough room for a perch. Each, now holding a whisper from me.
I sat, after the fullness of this experience - this walk that took me in as I took it in. I sat in a pew, and I asked for any leftover pain, or sadness, or anger to leave. Another whisper. A Portuguese priest arrived, stood on the stage, and began to say things, but I don’t know what. It only lasted about ten minutes, so it wasn’t church. And I sunk into my prayer, imagining that his words were echoing mine in another language… and who’s to say that’s not what was happening? We’ll never know, I guess.
We all met up a while later, mom and I found each other first. We stood quietly, and held hands in this place for a minute. We both felt the gravity, that was clear. After a while, she said, “I feel like a thousand pounds just came off my shoulders. I feel…” she paused, I smiled “…forgiven.”
In this place, all of our stuff was sent into the wind. It was gently removed by the loving hands of Mary. It was not why we went there. Or maybe it was, but we didn’t know it until we left.
The comfort that surrounds the Sanctuary of Fátima, it is in my bones. I will never un-feel it. I am connected to it. To her. And to whispers. And to peace. And to running toward more of it. And it is my mother who brought me there. And it is I who brought her. And all things will be grounded in that truth first - with us, and with everything. It is the realest feeling I have ever known. Immediate, and actually filled with grace. And it was a gift from my mother.
And today we celebrate her. So even if it’s not your favorite, you should probably have some licorice. This place has rainbow licorice, and that’s what I need to be able to happily have some with her. It’s her favorite, and it’s her day. Well, her and a saint, and also a leprechaun.
Speaking of shoulder action...
