What are pleasant memories but nostalgic glimpses into our lives.
As a kid I didn’t like going to Church. I would rather spend a Sunday morning riding my bike. And the only time I had any fun in Church was when I saw my mom swaying back and forth, in rhythm with the music. I started doing the same thing. I even started jumping up and down. But when the Lady in White looked at me, I froze.
The Lady in White didn’t seem very friendly. And she was always staring at me. She looked as old as my mom, with black hair and wore a flowy long sleeve white dress. The dress went down to her ankles, and she had a white headscarf. Unlike my mom, she didn’t wear any makeup.
She looked very serious. I entertained the idea that maybe she just didn’t like boys? Back then, I knew many girls that didn’t like boys. Boys and girls just didn’t get along. And I especially hated Peggy. She was always pinching me.
The Lady in White was always standing in the corner, and on the left side of the Church. She didn’t sit down. She wasn’t even near a pew. And when it was time to kneel down, she knelt on the hard floor. When I got home, I tried doing the same thing for a few minutes and my knees ached.
The first time I ever noticed her, I was around 7-years-old. I had never seen her before. We went to a small, modest, Catholic Church. And I knew all the faces of its members.
And before she started attending the Church, I would take a few of my toy soldiers along with me, and play with them. But she started staring at me, whenever I took them out of my pockets. She was one of these nosey busybodies that couldn’t mind their own business.
She was there every Sunday, and I dreaded seeing her. Every time I wasn’t paying attention I could feel her looking at me. I thought it was just my imagination. But when I peeked in her direction, she was staring right at me, with a frown on her face.
I told my dad about it and pointed to her. But he got mad. He said, “You don’t point at people. She’s probably annoyed with you because you’re constantly fidgeting.”
At the time, I didn’t know what “fidgeting” meant, but I could tell by the look on my dad’s face that it wasn’t good. After that, I never said anything else about the Lady in White. She might tell my dad that I was always “fidgeting.”
I noticed that the Lady in White wouldn’t stop staring, until I started paying attention to what the Priest was saying. But it was so boring.
And when it wasn’t boring, I was usually in trouble. That was because of Mark.
Mark was 3 years younger than me. He was around 4. And he had a baby brother that had a big mouth and was always crying. One time, when the baby brother was crying and we were exiting the Church, I walked up to his stroller, and waved to him. I even made a funny face, hoping to cheer him up. He threw his bottle at me.
The family didn’t go to Church every Sunday and that was understandable. Those 2 guys were a handful
One Sunday, I promised myself to be on my best behavior because my dad promised to take me to the park after Church. But Mark got me into a lot of trouble. He was sitting a few rows in front of us, and he took out of his jacket pocket a ball. He turned around and looked at me and was showing me his prized possession. Not to be outdone, I raised my arm, and pointed to my new watch. I felt like an adult. My parents gave it to me a few weeks earlier, as a present for making my Communion. And then I watched in horror as Mark went into a windup position, like a pitcher would. Did he think I was signaling for him to throw me the ball? All I wanted to do was show him my new watch.
Mark threw me a fastball. The kid had a pretty good arm. I tried to catch the ball, which was coming at me like a rocket, but it flew right over my head and hit an elderly lady, and it bounced off her head. She was startled and screamed.
I went to retrieve the ball, and was relieved when I found it. It wasn’t a hard ball, but a sponge ball. She was a lucky lady.
My dad went to retrieve me. The man, whose mom got hit with the ball, wasn’t happy. He called me a jerk for playing catch in the Church, and my dad a poor parent. But he didn’t say it as nicely as that.
There was an argument and they had to be separated by the ushers in the Church. After Church, we didn’t go to the park. And I was punished. No television.
The next Sunday, I couldn’t believe what was happening. Mark and his baby brother and parents were sitting right in front of us. And Mark was sitting right in front of me. His parents were talking with my parents, before the Mass began, about the week before. They were laughing. I couldn’t believe it. What was there to laugh about? It was a disaster. I was punished and didn’t go to the park and I didn’t get to see tv.
I made sure to not make even eye contact with Mark. And even though he was talking to me, I ignored him. But Mark is not the kind of guy that you can ignore. He’s very sensitive and tried to punch me.
I wanted to whack him in the head but I resisted. I tried to keep my eye on the prize and not get distracted. My dad promised to take me to the park, if I behaved. I wasn’t going to jeopardize that. And I already got into trouble earlier, at breakfast. My mom yelled at me for putting too much syrup on the pancakes. I tried to explain to her that I didn’t like pancakes, just the syrup, but that made her angrier.
Halfway through the Mass, and I heard a frog croaking. I wondered, did Mark bring a frog to Church? I looked at his jacket’s pockets, but I didn’t see anything bulging. The frog wasn’t there. Oh no! Maybe the frog escaped and is hopping around. I started looking all around. The Lady in White was looking at me, but I didn’t care. There was a frog on the loose and I didn’t want to get blamed. Or have it jump on me. Someone told me that frogs can give you warts.
Mark whispered something in his mom’s ear, and he was excused. He ran to the bathroom. But he was going in the wrong direction. It was then that I realized that it wasn’t a frog croaking but Mark farting. My mom told me to go get him and go with him to the bathroom.
We had to wait outside the bathroom. It was occupied. And Mark kept croaking and croaking. I don’t know why but I felt embarrassed. Mark seemed to be taking it in stride, and wasn’t overly concerned.
The woman finally came out and Mark hurried in. He tried to grab my hand. He wanted me to come inside the bathroom with him, but I refused. I pushed him inside and shut the door.
After a couple of minutes, I noticed that water was coming out from behind the door. And when I opened the door, I was hit with a tidal wave. Mark broke the handle on the toilet, and it kept flushing and flushing. And because there was lots of paper in the toilet bowl it was clogged. He didn’t even use toilet paper but paper towels to wipe his butt, and it clogged the toilet. His reputation for not being the sharpest tool in the shed was well deserved.
The bathroom was right outside the Church entrance, to the right, and I watched as the water made its way into the Church. Along with Mark’s poop.
Mark and I were examining the situation. Neither of us knew what to do. I don’t know why but I felt embarrassed. Mark seemed to be taking it in stride, and wasn’t overly concerned. I was about to take Mark’s hand, and run back to where our parents were, and pretend that we didn’t know what happened, when one of the ushers yelled, “What the hell happened?”
The parishioners weren’t happy, and neither was the Priest. My parents blamed me. I should have kept an eye on Mark.
After the Mass, I noticed that the Lady in White was staring at me, and her head was wagging in disapproval.
We didn’t go to the park and there was no television for me that Sunday.
The Lady in White would be staring at me for the next three years.
When I was around 10-years-old my dad got sick. He had a stroke, and my mom stopped going to Church. She was too busy taking care of my dad. And even though the Church was a couple of blocks from where I lived, I stopped going.
My dad would never go back to that Church again. He had his second stroke when I was 12. The day that he died in the nursing home, that night I had a dream. I saw the Lady in White and she was with my dad. She was holding his hand.
I noticed that my dad’s right arm and hand were no longer paralyzed. And he was no longer crippled. He was walking with the Lady in White, hand in hand, and they were both ascending a long staircase. They were both smiling. I hadn’t seen my dad smile like that in a long time.
There were white clouds on both sides of the staircase and golden rays emanating from above it. And above that there was a wall of bright Light. It was so bright that I had to turn away. I couldn’t look at it.
My dad and the Lady in White turned around and started waving their hands. I knew that they were waving at me.
I woke up.
That Sunday, I went to Church. I wanted to talk to the Lady in White. I wanted to tell her all about my dream. But she wasn’t there. After the Sunday Mass I approached Father Zimmerman and I told him about my dream. I asked him about the Lady in White.
He assured me that the Lady in White, never went to our Church. He looked at me in disbelief.
I looked at him in disbelief. What was he talking about?
Father Zimmerman: “If she had attended, I would have seen her. Someone dressed all in white would be hard not to notice.”
But I didn’t believe him. I figured that he was old and more than likely senile. Maybe he forgot. I started asking other people that I saw at the Masses that I attended. No one ever saw her.
But an elderly woman told me, “She might have been an Angel. Every Church has one.”
I looked at the elderly woman suspiciously. What was she talking about? It couldn’t have been an Angel. She didn’t have wings.
Many years have gone by, and time fades memories, or wipes them away. But not the Lady in White. I remember her frowning at me, as if it were just yesterday. I never saw the Lady in White again, not even in a dream. I am now a Priest in that very same Church. And at every Sunday Mass, before it begins, I look for the Lady in White.
Photo by Florian Weichert on Unsplash
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