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<\/p>\nIt has always seemed wrong to me to buy your own rosary. Rosaries should be passed down. From grandmothers to mothers to daughters. I have wanted to buy one over the last year, felt the need, and have even gone shopping a couple of times, but have hesitated on putting money down because of this strange feeling inside that no … no … a rosary should not be bought. It needs to be given.<\/p>\n
The rain pours down today, and I am sick as a dog. On the mend, but flu-ridden and heartsick. Periodically out of my mind. I spent the day recovering, lying in bed, and then there was a two-hour phone conversation with my dear friend Jen, about something she is going through. Well, we spent one hour on HER life, and then one hour on mine. It was difficult, with my raw flu-sore throat, to talk that much, but I needed it. It keeps me connected and it keeps me talking.<\/p>\n
I went to take down my recyclables into the basement and saw a package lying on the floor underneath my mailbox. I glanced closely at it and saw it was for me. It was a handwritten label, which was strange, because it looked like the monthly box of Moodstar Essential Oils I get (please do not judge, although I realize that might be difficult), but my monthly stash comes with a typewritten label.<\/p>\n
Now the interesting thing was that the handwriting on the box today was as familiar to me as my own, although I have not seen said handwriting in, what, almost 30 years? She is a friend from my past, my high school friend, and naturally I grew up in the days before texting and email, so I am very familiar with everybody’s handwriting from my past. At a certain point in my life, I stopped knowing what my friends’ handwriting looks like, a very interesting phenomenon, I think. Like, Allison. Allison is one of my best friends on the planet but I could not pick her handwriting out of a lineup because I met her after I had email. But my childhood friends, my family, my Chicago boyfriends … these people have handwriting I know in my DNA.<\/p>\n
The handwriting on this box was an echo from my distant past. One of my dearest friends in high school. We are now Facebook friends, and we are not in touch as we used to be, but my memory of her is fond and dear. I was not even aware that she had my current address.<\/p>\n
I’ve been hearing from a lot of random people these last four or five months, of course – so, curious, I took the box back into my apartment and opened it up.<\/p>\n
There was a card from her, and a brief note – again, in that handwriting that I know so well, the rounded neat edges, the kind of squat openings in the letters – the writing that says to me, in no uncertain terms, HER. It is a fingerprint. We would write notes in class to each other. We would pass notes in the hallway. I have some of them still. Handwriting changes, sure, but not all that much. There SHE was. Again.<\/p>\n
Her note was sweet and short, and she said she had been looking for something that had “Mother Mary” on it to send to me … which immediately brought up emotion in my throat – I’ve never written about Mary, and I probably never will. Those feelings are so mine and should never be shared. But I felt the emotion start, and after I finished reading her note, I reached into the box, through the bubble wrap, and pulled out a small wrapped box, invisible in the layers of bubble wrap. I unwrapped it, and saw a clear-plastic box, with a rosary in it. A beautiful rosary.<\/p>\n
I am beyond words. Beyond words. One word.<\/p>\n
hailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswiththee
\nblessedartthouamongwomenandblessedisthefruitofthywombJesus
\nholyMarymotherofGodprayforussinners
\nnowandatthehourofourdeathamen<\/p>\n
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It has always seemed wrong to me to buy your own rosary. Rosaries should be passed down. From grandmothers to mothers to daughters. I have wanted to buy one over the last year, felt the need, and have even gone … Continue reading