Crying at the Madonna

Last March I went to visit my mother in her new apartment; a few months earlier we’d moved her from her large town home, into a smaller apartment. She is near my brother now, who works from home. He is a good man and will watch over her. She moved from Owatonna, where I used to live, to Waconia, a beautiful spot west of the Twin Cities. My mom turned 85 in April.

It was hard for her to move again, the second time since my dad died 8 years ago. Even now, she still has lots of unpacking to do. She said she wanted to put her Hummel nativity set up, even though it was barely spring. I said, “Let’s do it.” This nativity set is precious to my mom for a number of reasons. Firstly, because it is very valuable. My mom likes valuable things. Secondly, because it was my dad’s Aunt Sue’s and anything that Aunt Sue had was ‘very valuable.’ And thirdly, because it's just beautiful. The colors are soft and subtle, the features of the figurines are serene and painted with care.

I am not so certain, as my mother is, of the value of things. I grew up having to be too careful of all her things, and so my relationship with things is more ambivalent. I can be grasping and greedy one minute, “Ooh, it’s pretty, I want that,” to “Oh sweetheart, this vase, do you want it? It’s just collecting dust.” I am learning to be more fluid about stuff, knowing it is often, easy come, and easy go, especially in my family. And the value of things is always negligible, we assign things their worth.

So, we unwrapped the Nativity, a simple set, just baby Jesus, Joseph, the barn, and Mary. For some reason, when my mom handed me the statue of Mary, I choked up. I looked at this little figurine in my hand and I remembered the awe I felt at the back of our Catholic church, lighting candles in front of the statue of the Virgin. I was suddenly only six or seven years old, and I remembered my dad, taking my hand as a child after Mass on Christmas morning, stooping down, saying gently, “Theresa, do you want to go up and look at baby Jesus?”