An Assumption Day Offering

Assumption Day was a puzzling day, as all Marian feasts are to me.

Other people have an easy time envisioning the Blessed Virgin as their mother, and I don’t. I would like to know what it’s like to feel close to a mother. I have never known what to do to make a mother love me, not once. Earning love from a mother, even placating a mother, was always impossible. I don’t know how to do that. “Mother” is one of those terms that is an ineffable mystery to me, like “resurrection” and “assumption into Heaven.”

Some of my friends were celebrating Assumption Day by bringing the Blessed Virgin bouquets of flowers and herbs. I had some herbs. Herbs are not an ineffable mystery. Herbs are horticulture. I’m good at horticulture. I went out to the garden with my scissors, to honor Mary.

Under the critical eye of Charlie the traumatized garden cat, I cut some basil and oregano, the only two herbs of mine that have done well this year. I tucked them into a nosegay around sunflowers from the backyard and red clover from the grass. The bouquet in my hands smelled like pizza. What it needed was mint. Mint is a pest of an herb if you want to grow a lawn, but a glorious smell for a bouquet of herbs. The purple flowers that spring up from mint are delightful. At the Artful Dodgers‘ old place, the yard had been overrun with mint. I crossed the alley to see if I could find any.

I found that the dumpster full of the Dodgers’ hoarded belongings had already been towed away, and the yard was mowed down to the stubs, so you could see the hard gray earth between blades of brown grass. The weeds had been up to my shoulder last week, and now they were gone. It was as if the asset management company didn’t only intend to clean up the property, but to burn Carthage and salt the earth.

The Blessed Virgin got a bouquet without any mint. I left it beside the statue outside the church, not daring to make eye contact with her, wishing I ever knew what to say as I went in to Mass. Maybe she would reject my offering of the fruit of the ground, like Cain’s.

The next day was Saturday. Jimmy’s boy came over to help me water the garden.

He asked if I had any math books, because math was his favorite subject and the only thing he was looking forward to about school. I did happen to have a picture book about fractions. I read it, and then I asked him his addition and subtraction facts, and held up fingers for him to count. Afterwards, in the cool of the day, just as the sun was going down, we went for a walk.

We passed the Dodgers’ house. The Artful Dodger was Jimmy’s boy’s best friend, and he’s been terribly lonely since they went away.

“Can we walk through their yard?” he asked.

“Better not; there could be ticks. I’m sorry they cut the grass so low! I’ll miss all that beautiful mint.”

“I can show you where there’s more mint!”

Jimmy’s boy led me further down the alley to a garage with cracked pavement in front. A beautiful cascade of mint was growing out of every broken spot in the concrete, spilling over into the alley. I gathered a big handful as we walked on, mostly talking about gardens. The neighbors at the end of the block have an apple tree, but the apples must not be sweet, because they don’t harvest them. They let them rot and fall all over the sidewalk.

“Did you know they don’t grow apple trees from seeds?” I asked Jimmy’s boy. “They grow them from grafts. That’s how you get a good sweet apple. I’d love to grow apple trees someday.”

Jimmy’s boy was enthusiastic about our imaginary orchard. We talked about how I’d plant the saplings and he’d guard them from neighborhood vandals, as we approached the vacant rental house next to the empty lot.

That is the house I’d love to buy, if I were rich.

If I suddenly inherited a billion dollars, I wouldn’t buy a mansion in a nice safe blue state. I wouldn’t fly away to Europe and live in a castle. I’d just buy that house and the lot beside it. I’d fix the boarded up door and paint the green trim. And then I’d have the urban farm I always wanted, right here in LaBelle, next to the neighbors I’ve grown to love.

Jimmy’s boy has a secret hideout in the walnut trees behind the vacant house. He went to check on it as I stood on the lot and told him my plans: where I’d put the vegetable patch, where I’d plant the postage stamp apple orchard. Here would be the grape arbor, and over here a strawberry pyramid. Here the whimsical bird feeders for every type of songbird. On the hill by the retaining wall, wildflowers. Maybe we’d have room for a koi pond and three runner ducks. And then I would live on my urban farm, paying a tiny property tax instead of a much bigger rent, because the taxes are low here, because wise people with money to spend want nothing to do with LaBelle. I would share food with my neighbors and welcome the neighbor children to play in the yard. I would volunteer with the children at the church outreach several times a week. I would never have to write unless I wanted to. I would never worry again.

“You should call the number!” said Jimmy’s boy, referring to the “for sale by owner” sign in front of the house.

“I don’t have any money. I can barely afford my rent,” I said. “But oh, if I could…”

I clutched the bouquet of mint in my hand, and the perfume rose up.

Around me was LaBelle, a complicated neighborhood where I’ve begun to find happiness. Around LaBelle was Steubenville, a terrible town out of which nothing good could come, like Nazareth. Above me was the firmament, blue going pink at sunset, with the night closing in. Above the firmament were all kinds of things I couldn’t understand, like Omniscience, Omnipotence, Immutability, Trinity, the Beatific Vision, the Nine Choirs of Angels, the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of Sins, the Resurrection of the Body, and Life Everlasting. Assumption Day. Maybe even a mother who loves me.

Let my prayer ascend to you like incense, and the lifting up of my hands like an evening sacrifice. 

I walked Jimmy’s boy home.

I put the mint in front of the statue of Mary in my icon corner, not daring to make eye contact.

Maybe it wasn’t rejected.

Maybe she loves me.

Maybe I don’t need to understand.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows and Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.