“Petition to Mary’ was written in Mom’s hand and with her things after she died. My sister, Janet, and I believe she wrote it after Bob’s death from polio. Mom was very literary though she only had an 8th grade education. She had a worn rosary, and often said it was what helped her deal with her grief. She would just keep it in her hands, wearing the beads thin as she said her prayers.
I remember she kept a lock of Bob’s hair and a Lone Ranger bullet along with a few other mementos of him. She often compared him to Little Boy Blue, a child from a nursery rhyme. His sleep may be the sleep of death. Shakespeare referenced the rhyme in King Lear.
“Twilight — the pause spanning the arch from day to night. We are alone, at last, my son’s dog and I. An unfamiliar silence rushes to engulf us.
The dog whines. Now, he is trotting off hopefully to search each hiding place again.
My beads lay cold within my hands. With heart colder still my lips begin the ancient prayers.
‘Hail Mary’ – Oh! Lady of Sorrows, you will understand, for you too have a son.
Mine left me today. Running down the long road he turned and smiled a last farewell.
Like a shaft of sunlight suddenly blotted out by a passing cloud; his stay with me is done. His eager spirit is returning home to God and you.
Perhaps, even now, you can see him running breathlessly toward you, among the windswept clouds, free and unafraid.
If he is restless, Mother Mary, please let him change from his ‘dress up’ suit of brown into faded jeans.
And, if he is a little late, please hang out a twinkling star to guide him. He was ever unmindful of passing time.
Down here, the ways of little creatures held a never ending interest for his searching mind.
Perhaps along the way, back to you, he has found a dove, needing care that gentle, grimy hands can give.
But gentle Mother, I know he will come. To him a promise was a sacred thing.
At bedtime when the quiet moon hangs breathless in the dark sky you will see the same quick wonder reflected in his face.
It has been two long years. Long years? To me, his mother, it was but a Rosary ago.”
This is the original Mom wrote:
