WHY MOTHER MARY KNOWS MY NAME

Twenty-seven years ago, I was a single mother. Because my job called for so much travel, and available child care was so unreliable, I had to place my 8-year old son with my parents in Oklahoma. He adjusted immediately, and I was on the verge of death from Terminal Lonliness.

I drove from Louisiana to Oklahoma once a month to visit, phoned him every day. One Sunday morning, returning to Baton Rouge, I pulled up at a rest stop next to a car loaded with baby furniture, boxes, and luggage. Two boys, one just older than my son, one just younger, slept in the back seat. A woman about 35 studied a map, a new baby slept on the front seat, and the passenger seat was empty. Just ahead, at the garbage cans, an elderly woman in a cotton housedress was doing something. I rushed to the restroom and back to my car. As I drove back onto the highway headed south, I realized the old woman was sorting through the garbage and removing bits which she put into a MacDonald's sack on the ground. I panicked. "I only have $5 I can spare, but I should give it to them. Those boys are going to have garbage for breakfast when they wake up. Poor people are so proud, what if I insult them by offering money…" I was onto the highway by then and a sign said NEXT EXIT 25 MILES. Too late! By the time I drove the 25 miles, and 25 miles back, nearly an hour would have passed and they would surely be gone…I couldn't help them because I'd been too slow-witted.

I thought of those handsome boys in the back seat. The baby furniture said they had a destination. A single mother, like me, for sure. I felt worse and worse. Finally, I asked to speak to Mother Mary. I apologized for not helping one of my fellow creatures whose problems I certainly understood. I spoke aloud: "Heavenly Mother, from this day forward, if You will protect my son so that he doesn't have to eat garbage for breakfast, I will never again pass up an opportunity to help."

Last year, my agent stole the contents of my gallery. He had a key to the storage unit and was able to sell everything without my knowledge. When I arrived back in town to collect things to move back East, he left his wife and two teenagers with $1 and ran away rather than face me. When I had loaded the few pieces that remained at his house, I started to leave. I could not turn the key to the car. My agent's wife was now a single mother, in the same dire straits as the woman in Oklahoma so many years ago. I was dreadfully short of cash, beginning the trip from Arizona to Georgia. I got out of the car because I could not drive away. I got out and handed her $100.

The "bargain", promise, whatever you prefer to call it, made with Mother Mary 27 years ago is still in effect. I am not able to pass up one of Her creatures when I see a need. I am not so different from the person who asked to feel better about herself by right action in the future. Although I did not recognize the two situations as exactly alike, I could see the need for my help. I give thanks that Mother Mary was able to stop me from driving away, mindless of the need.

My son is adult and has eaten well for all these years. Unless and until She releases me from my promise, I must assume that the bargain is very much in place today.

I give thanks.

Patricia Angeline Sistrunk