My Mother's Beads

I remember the first time I ever saw a Rosary. I was about eight
years old, and had gone to Cape Cod to stay with family friends for a
month or so in the summertime, while my father and his girlfriend went
on a vacation together.

Nights were a nightmare there, as the man of the house was.. well.
Let's just say that he was sick, and his sickness was taken out on
little girls in his house. And I was the only little girl there.

Each day I would wander the streets of the town, riding my bike up and
down the sidewalks, getting myself ice cream cones, and dreading
returning back to that house of horror.

One day, as I rode past the Catholic church on the main street, I
noticed a brand new statue in front, a statue of the Virgin Mary, and
in her hand was a string of the most beautiful beads I had ever seen in
my life. Blue crystal beads, it was, with a shiny silver crucifix and a
pretty little center piece. I stopped, transfixed by the beautiful
beads.

At that time, I didn't know what the Rosary was. I barely understood
what Mary herself was. I had been baptised Catholic, but that had been
the extent of my religious upbringing. All I knew was that the
beautiful lady had a beautiful necklace, and I wanted that necklace in
the most intense way.

I sat at the feet of the statue for hours, staring up at the hand
holding those beads, as I contemplated how to grab them and run without
getting caught. Each time I would bolster my courage enough to snatch
them, somebody would walk past, and my bravado would fade. So I just
sat there, staring.

Near dusk, a priest came out of the front doors of the church and
noticed me sitting there, cross-legged at the feet of the Blessed
Mother. He walked over to me and asked me how I liked the new statue,
to which I replied "She's beautiful - but why isn't she wearing her
necklace on her neck?"

The priest smiled at me and walked over to Mary, took the Rosary from
her hand, and explained to me what it was. He showed me how to pray it,
handed it to me, and we prayed it together, with me stumbling over the
unfamiliar words of the prayers.

After we had finished praying, I handed the Rosary back to him, and he
wouldn't take it. He said that he had had a feeling that he was needed
out front that afternoon, and had come out to find me sitting there,
and that he felt that the Rosary was meant for me. He told me to return
the next day and he would give me a book with all of the prayers in
it.

I went home that evening floating on a cloud, the rosary in my pocket.
The next day I returned to the church and Father gave me a small book
of prayers. For some reason that I've never quite understood, for the
remainder of my stay on Cape Cod, the man of the house never touched me
again.

Over the years, my faith in God grew stronger and stronger, until my
teen years, when I fell away from the Church and from God. Yet, all of
my life I have felt a strong pull toward the rosary, and a fascination
with my Wonderful Mother, Mary. Perhaps she speaks to the hurting and
motherless child in me.

That first Rosary is long since lost in my journeys through life, but I
have never been without at least one Rosary in my possession, and have
always found myself praying to Mary when life is hard or I'm afraid -
even when I was steadfastly denying the existence of God. Somehow, I
have always come back to "Mama" when the chips were down.

I hope that that first Rosary has found its way to another person who
needs it as badly as I needed it when I first got it. All that I know
for sure is that on that summer day, my Mother went out of her way to
give me a miracle. First she kept me from stealing the Rosary, then she
dragged that poor priest away from his other tasks and had him teach me
to pray, and finally, she got me the protection I needed to be able to
sleep without fear for the rest of the summer.