May and the Rosary Month –a Reminder to Call Your Mom

May is dedicated to Mary.

As a kid, I loved the May crowning of our Blessed Mother.  In second grade, I got to bring the crown up on a silky pillow.  I memorized all the songs and even now when I sing them in mass, I can hear eight year old me belting it out with all sincerity, out of tune but completely earnest in my singing.

As part of Easter, as part of celebrating this month, I’m trying to get back on the Rosary bandwagon.  The thought had teased more than once today.  A friend at work indicated he’d been to a funeral,  I took the name of the deceased and said I’d add him to my rosary.  When I got home, my email included a post from Next Door about a homeless woman in a wheelchair dying today in the parking lot of a local shopping strip we frequent.   Someone commented, “May she rest in peace.” and I remembered, she should be remembered in the rosary too.

Sitting down from the day, the red velvet bag had been buried by two books and a headband.  Somehow, despite the reminders to me, it took a bit of effort to ferret it out.    My son came in to take over our bathroom, and a daughter came to ask for help with work.   My husband sat down at the desk to work and I wondered if I could even start.

All the distractions indicated to me, how much the devil fears any of us praying the rosary.  I made it through a decade before being asked to find videos for a  history assignment not blocked by the school webblocker.  However, she decided she would do it herself, which meant I could return to the rosary if I disciplined myself. I admit, the second decade came slowly.   I got distracted by social media, my phone, and the desire to be clever on someone else’s page, and then came a post requesting comfort and again, the Blessed Mother cleared her throat.

In that image, I heard, “Sherry, these people need your prayers.” and the inverse, “Sherry, you need to be praying, they’re helping you too.”

By the time I finished the second decade, I felt weepy.  Mary has always been there for me. I recalled when she sent rosaries almost every day for several weeks to me, like a monsoon of rosaries, when I thought maybe I should be praying it.   When I first found out I was pregnant with my first child, I felt worried and scared of being a mother, and of enduring the risks of pregnancy –and Mary gave me a glimpse of her, and under her mantle were all these children, and she sent all these mothers to that mass I attended where I had this vision.  Wave after wave of mothers walking up to receive Jesus, and reassurance after reassurance, with each reception, with each “Amen,” that it would be okay.  I know Mary held my hand when I was pregnant with Faith and stuck with bedrest, Holy Week of 2002.  She’s answered so many prayers over the years, (even the stupid ones), I’m surprised she still takes my calls.  Except she doesn’t tire.  She doesn’t mind my prayers or my needs.

I started the third decade.  Things got difficult, and the decade got speed prayed while we tried to help with various homework assignments.   It seemed appropriate that the mystery of the crowning Christ with thorns flowed through the helping with homework. It is part of parenting I struggle with; I rarely feel happy after I’m dismissed, and more often, I wonder if I’ve done permanent damage to the mother-child relationship, irrespective of child, age, or subject matter.

The fourth decade loomed.  I thought about excercise and how tempting it is, not at the half way but the three-fourths way, to stop.  I was at the 3/4th point.  So I prayed it all for one person.  Knots we knew were seemingly impossible to untie, loosened without even my request.  My mother knows. I thanked her, and found myself falling into prayer again once the whole of the rosary finished.  There were plenty of interruptions in the prayer, but where itI’d felt fatigued by the iterruptons before, I now just viewed it as breathing, little exhales inbetween the prayers, that included brownies, a conversation with my eldest aabout his day off, and watching a few short clips of Mikhail Baryshnikov with analysis.   Mary didn’t mind the interruptions and neither did I.

Bottom line, break out your rosary and call your mom.  She’ll be glad, and you’ll be even gladder.
Oh, and say a prayer for that poor woman who died in the parking lot in her wheelchair alone on a cold May 2nd, and for my friend and all his friends, who grieve the loss of a person they buried yesterday.