Our Lady of Mount Carmel (OLMC) School in the Bronx was half a mile from my childhood home. Every school day morning for eight years, I’d dash out the front door of my house, bookbag in hand, and scurry and jaywalk my way to OLMC.
Until I reached seventh grade, my mother – who, coincidentally, always had errands to run in the vicinity of the school – would scurry and jaywalk right along with me. And at the end of each school day, I’d find Mom waiting for me on the corner across from the OLMC auditorium.
Although she was habitually late to appointments, never returned a library book on time, and usually didn’t make it to Mass until the Gospel, Mom would, without fail, be waiting for me on that corner when the dismissal bell rang.
Except for one day, when I was in fourth grade. Though surprised that Mom wasn’t in her usual spot, I wasn’t concerned. I would wait, and she would come. I was sure of it. I saw other parents come, pick up their children, and leave. I waited. I saw my religion teacher Br. Gilbert, C.S.C., walk out of the school and into the Holy Cross House near the school. I waited. Gradually, the after-school noise and bustle faded away, and I was practically alone on the corner. Still, I waited.
Meanwhile, Mom was, as I later discovered, at the grocery store. There, she ran into my classmate Mary Ellen and her mother. The woman told Mom that it had been a half day at OLMC, and that classes had ended at lunchtime. Poor Mom was struck with panic at the news. Abruptly abandoning her grocery cart, she fled the store and ran toward OLMC, all the while imagining the terrible things that might have befallen her young daughter.
But by then, I was safe and warm inside the principal’s office. The school secretary, a no-nonsense woman with “mod” hair, had noticed me on the corner and led me into the office. While she tried to reach my mom by phone, I admired a colorful pile of “click-clacks” collected from students who had brought the forbidden toy to school in defiance of OLMC Principal Br. Raymond, C.S.C.
Sitting serenely in the rarefied space of Brother’s office, and feeling rather important, I had no idea that Mom was in hysterics and that Dad had been notified, through the high-drama neighborhood grapevine, that his daughter was “missing.”
I don’t remember the details of Mom’s arrival at the office. Knowing my mom, I would guess that she lashed out at Br. Raymond for (supposedly) not giving adequate notice of the half day. I would bet that the secretary made known her disapproval of Mom’s parental lapse. And I’m quite sure that Brother was just happy to lock the office door and go home.
What I do recall, most vividly, is my homecoming. I dropped my bookbag by the door and went upstairs to my room, where I saw something that I’d never seen before and would never see again: my dad in tears. Seeing his “piccolina” home safe, Dad, crying with relief, wrapped me in his arms with an intensity that scared me. At the same time, I could have stayed there forever, experiencing my dad’s love and knowing what I meant to him.
The love between father and child is formidable. Still, it’s only a faint echo of the love that our Heavenly Father has for His children. There is nothing that pleases Our Father more than to see His children home safe in the arms of Holy Mother Church. He fears for us when we wander, and He wants us, His little ones, to stay with Him forever.
“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God” (1 John 3:1).
By Celeste Behe, Catholic speaker and writer, and a parishioner of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, Hellertown. Find her online at www.CelesteBehe.com.
Photo: A statue of St. Joseph and the Child Jesus. (OSV News photo/Megan Marley)
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