My mother was really good at keeping us home from school. She made up the couch in the living room with sheets and soft blankets and the pillows from our beds, and tucked us in with the TV close by and all our current books and magazines. Whatever this bug was, the fever lingered (though the gastrointestinal part was, blessedly and truly, over). So a day turned into a week. And that turned into another week. And I believe I really was poorly, because I had no desire to do much other than watch the brand new soap opera I'd happened to catch the premier of ("All My Children"), and reruns of "That Girl," and to read my books.
In the middle of my third week at home it was Ash Wednesday, and suddenly I really wanted out of that couch-bed. I became very distressed when I understood that I wouldn't be able to receive my ashes. (I was a nerdily religious kid. In high school a friend who'd known me in those years asked, "Weren't you the one who wore a rosary on your uniform?" Yeah. That would be me.)
And... it's not as if a ton of people would see me, with or without my ashes. I had nothing to prove to anyone. I just really wanted them. It was important. Lent was important. And I knew, without exactly spelling it out to myself, that the message the priest always said as he smeared the ashes on my head. "Remember, man [sic], that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return," was kind of extra relevant for me, being sick. It's not that I thought I was in danger of dying. But for the first time in my childhood I felt just the teeniest bit fragile.
My mother said no. Her "no" was absolute, then and always. I cried as she went off to church to get ashes for herself. "We'll rub our foreheads together when I get back," she said. I didn't want that. I wanted them placed on me, in a cross, with those words, that made a tingle of fear run along my spine.
She returned with a big smile on her face and a small envelope in her hand.
"Monsignor sent these for you," she said. Monsignor O'Connor and I had already had some interesting interactions, including the time my mother took me to his office at my request, so that I could ask to become an altar girl. (Spoiler alert: There were no altar girls in 1970. But Monsignor said, "But I think there will be, some day." And that was enough for me. For a while.)
And I rose from my couch and my mother solemnly dipped her right thumb into the #10 envelope, and then smeared a cross on my forehead.
"Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return."
Then she tucked me back into my couch, and went into the kitchen to make me tea and toast.
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