What can these things have in common? Several years ago – well, quite a few actually, as the adorable little Rachael is now nineteen, so you can see how many…. Anyhow, shortly after getting the photos of her, I was going to show them to my breakfast guests, and I couldn’t find them. I looked high and low, and became a bit frantic, so the guests and I all prayed to St. Anthony to help me find the pictures. Rebecca has a special St. Anthony prayer book from which she read aloud prayer about lost objects. In part, the prayer said, “Fill me with disgust for the things of this world” (one of which I was desperately seeking), and somehow, this set me
tittering uncontrollably. Everyone said that my disrespect and hilarity would not ingratiate me to St. Anthony and he might not find my pictures as a result! Well, I just couldn’t help it. I got up from the table, full of confidence, and sought the pictures again, but they still were not to be found. The next day, still no pictures, but I opened a drawer, and there was the pen which had come with my nice checkbook holder, a gift from my mother. This was the only pen wh
ich would fit into the holder, and I had been quite upset when I lost it at least five years previous. Later in the day, I was cleaning my room, and lifted a pillow, and there was the baby kangaroo, lost years before from his mother’s pouch. This too, had been a sad loss for me as what is a mother kangaroo without a baby in her pocket? I never ever expected to see him again. The next day, I opened a drawer, and there was the little ceramic knob from the top of my grandmother’s little apricot and blue teapot. It had broken off at least five years earlier, and I had put it in the proverbial “safe place” until I was ready to glue it back on. Immediately, it slipped into the mists, and many searches would not turn it up. But still no pictures. It seemed that St. Anthony was toying with me. At the end of the week, I could not believe all the long lost objects I had found and the pictures which I still had not found. I went to church to practice the organ for the upcoming Sunday, and the secretary said, “You left your pictures here, dear.” And there they were. All to prove that St Anthony has quite the sense of humor.
At about the same time, I was visiting my parents, and my saintly father was sitting on the porch praying his rosary. “You still have the same rosary you did when I was little,” I said. “No,” he answered sadly. “That was my grandmother’s and I lost it.”
I prayed to St. Anthony, and went off to find his rosary. I moved a dresser, and there under it was the lost rosary. (You have to understand that my mother was a house cleaner extraordinaire, and nothing was ever not cleaned under at least weekly.) I brought it back to my father, and he was thrilled. “How long has it been lost?” I asked, thinking it would be a few days. “At least fifteen years,” he answered. Wow! That Saint Anthony, in addition to having a sense of humor, is a true miracle worker. What brings all this up now? See the little pink and white pen? It is special because it writes a very fine line, fits in my work jacket pocket, and was expensive (sort of.) I lost it at work, and before I left I put out an APB. The next day, someone found another pink and white pen and left it for me but it was not the right one. I had given up on finding it, but prayed to St. A as a last resort, turned around, and there it was between the laptop and its wheeled cart. I had looked there several times to no avail the evening before. And since there are about twelve wheeled computers on our floor, even getting the same one was a bit of a stretch.
And why is there no picture of my father’s miraculous rosary? It is here somewhere, but I can’t find it.
Yesterday morning, I was taking a walk to the grocery store, to get the fixings for dinner with Ana, and halfway there, discovered that the school yard through which I normally walk to get to the store, was locked up! I was pretty grumpy about this because it meant going about three blocks out of my way. I called Rebecca to grumble, but since she was at work, I grumbled to her voice mail. I stepped off the curb, and sort of collapsed to the pavement and landed in my knees and chin! What a shock that was! I examined my knees and hands for blood and there was none, so I sat down on the grass to recover and decide what to do. Call someone and get sympathy was the obvious thing, but Rachael didn’t answer her phone. I knew if I called my sainted auntie she would want to come get me and would make a satisfying fuss, but I didn’t really feel the need to be gotten, so I soldiered on. By the time I got to Trader Joe’s, there was blood everywhere – a mystery at first as my knees and head were what hurt, and I had rather forgotten about my chin. I did generate some slightly repulsed but polite sympathy from the teller at Trader Joe’s, but that was not quite the same. On the way back I called Rachael again, and she made the right noises, and gasped appropriately when I got home. However, I knew where the real cosseting lay. I picked these lovely tomatoes and took some to my auntie, and she was most gratifyingly horrified. She wanted to do this and that, and then called up just a few minutes ago to get a health status report. She reiterated the whole misadventure, and speculated at length as to the possible causes of my odd fall. Most satisfying. My dinner with Ana was very pleasant, and we afterwards worked on winding her yarn into skeins. As we were eating our dessert, I pointed out that my chin had been bleeding all day, and was still bleeding. “Maybe I am turning into a hermaphrodite,” I speculated. Ana laughed and said she didn’t think so. I told you that my head got jostled!
ven, Rebecca fell into a mud puddle in the very spot where I sat to recover. This means that all three of us have taken a tumble right there! Mysterious, don't you think?
