Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Special Treat – Elizabeth Evans

January 30, 2008

Mistress Mary, Our Lady of the Gardens

Elizabeth Evans

 As you come up our stone steps from the carpark, a granite Mary abides on the stone wall greeting all that visit our home and keeping watch with her lantern and protecting all that pass her way.  Mistress Mary didn't always sit on the stone wall....at one time, her place was on a wooden post of a split rail fence that separated the lawn in front of our home from the carpark.  How she came to reside on a post in front of our house is a long story.

In the summer of '92, being Zach's tenth year, I along with Papa decided that it was Zach's turn for a cross country trip across America.  Both of our older boys declined the offer...having traveled with us many times in the past across this beautiful country camping in all the National Parks.  We were gone most of the summer and when we returned who greeted us but a granite Mary, Mother of our Lord.

"So Aaron, what is this statue doing on a fence post?" I asked.  I never really liked granite Marys, or ducklings, or any of those other lawn ornaments.  In Ireland, I had been amused at all the stone Marys in bathtubs.  And here, nailed to a post, was our very own Mary.  Of all the things to come home to, I thought!

"It's for Zach.  Zach you ole holy roller, look what I found for you...your own Blessed Mother!"

Aaron, being eight years older, was always surprised by his younger brother's fervent beliefs in Catholism.  Zach attended and served as an altar boy every Sunday at Holy Mass, attended CCD class without a moan, and looked forward to all the Catholic Holy Days throughout the year. He felt it an honor to wash the priest's during the Easter virgil.   In Aaron's mind, Zach had certainly lost his marbles.  Who would ever go to Church willingly?  Not Aaron, that's for sure.

But Zach did not see the joke....instead he was overwhelmed with happiness with the gift and so Mary stayed.  We did not question where Mary was "found"...nor did we think to move her.  And so, Mary sat on the fencepost.  She became a topic of conversation for all that visited.  I imagine some folks, especially the Jahovah Witnesses were put off by our Mary...all very well in my eyes.

The years passed and Mary sat.  Then in the spring of 1997 Aaron was in the hospital suffering from a dreaded bone marrow disease called aplastic anemia.  It was the evening of April 22, Aaron's twenty-second birthday, and that afternoon he had received his bone marrow transplant.  I walked into his room that evening and found him sleeping with a smile on his face.  And as I laid down on the bed next to him, his eyes gradually opened and he looked at me.  I asked him if he had been scared about the transplant and he said, "No, not at all.  I had the most beautiful dream, Mom.  A beautiful lady in blue wrapped her cloak around me and held me close and told me not to be afraid...that she was with me.  A blue mist surrounded us.  She was so peaceful Mom...and I knew everything was going to be alright."  I laughed and said, "It must of been the Blessed Mother, Aaron."  But in my mind, I truly thought, "Oh my, Aaron must be on some powerful drugs if he sees "a lady in blue"!

The transplant was a success and for a few weeks we thought we were over the hump.  But then Aaron developed a common cold and because he had a suppressed immune system, he died.  The afternoon of his death, as I walked from the carpark to the house, my eyes alighted on Mary of the fencepost and I knew Aaron was safe in the arms of our Blessed Mother. 

 Elizabeth Evans

bluehaaron@yahoo.com