It was one of the two mornings of the week that I prayed the entire way to school. I always prayed to Mary that Mrs. G., my ninth-grade gym teacher, would be out sick, or that there would be an assembly during my gym class period, or, if neither of those things happened, I prayed that I would be able to do whatever we were doing in gym class that day.
On that particular day, I focused on the ability to serve a volleyball. I had not mastered the closed-fist punch that sends it soaring over the net. I couldn’t even get it in the air. I closed my hand like everyone else did, I swung my arm back and then forward, and after a few knuckles made feeble contact, the ball rolled off my palm and onto the floor. Every. Single. Time. In addition to my inability to serve, I couldn’t make any other contribution to the game. I tried to leap and reach when the ball headed in my direction, but I was continually outleaped and outreached by all of my classmates.
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I walked down Edgewood Avenue, the chilly morning fog emphasizing my feeling of solitude. I’d missed Linda, the one classmate who occasionally waited if she saw me coming. I didn’t see or hear anyone else. No chatter, no laughter. It was just the Virgin Mary and me.
At 13, I was already a situational and selective Catholic. I skipped Catechism class whenever I could, went to Mass only when Mom or Dad insisted, and never thought I’d committed enough sins to warrant a monthly confession. However, I did believe in praying when you needed help. Mary was my go-to for major worries because I envisioned her as being kind and approachable, and I assumed she paid special attention to girls who shared her name.
“Please, Mary. Let us not have gym today. Please.” I said the words to myself, over and over and over with no pauses in between, for the entire 20-minute walk. By the time I was crossing the school parking lot, an uncharacteristic sense of calm had settled over me. My prayer mantra ran through the back of my mind during first-period English and second-period French, but with no announcement of a morning assembly, I knew. I saw Mrs. G. as soon as I walked into the locker room.
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She stopped me and said, “As soon as you get dressed, come into my office. I need a favor.”
A favor? I already knew she didn’t like me. She only talked and joked with the girls who had a few athletic bones in their bodies, so I couldn’t imagine what she wanted. I put on my sleeveless white shirt and navy shorts, slipped into my socks and tennis shoes, and presented myself in her doorway.
“Can you sew a button on?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Would you sew this button back on my waistband?”
She handed me the red plaid skirt that had been replaced by her own athletic wear.
“Now?”
“Yes. Come on in when you’re done.”
She handed me a needle and thread, and I sat down in her chair while she herded my classmates into the gym. It took me a few minutes to affix the clear button, and after I knotted and broke off the thread, I left her skirt folded neatly over her chair. The volleyball game was in full swing when I entered. Mrs. G. gestured for me to take up the server’s position on the team nearest the door – which we both knew was humiliation in the making. I took aim, focused hard, and hit the ball a foot and a half into the air. Not over the net, but still.
“Good try,” my teammates called out. They’d never said anything like that before. None of my subsequent serves went over the net either, nor did I ever manage to hit the ball when it was in play. But I made it to the end of class with a strange feeling of peace.
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As I headed into the locker room, Mrs. G. said, “Thanks, Mary Ellen. You did a great job on my skirt.” Her praise elicited a dubious smile as questions filled my mind. Why had she pulled me aside to play seamstress? Why was she being unusually kind? Why was I so much less traumatized than usual on the volleyball court?
I had a hard time imagining Mary silently advising Mrs. G. to give me a non-athletic task I was able to do. Or relaxing my mind and my fist enough to actually hit the ball. Or whispering in the ears of my teammates with a suggestion that they opt for kindness instead of eye rolls. It wasn’t a clear and direct response, like when St. Anthony, patron saint of lost things, pointed me to a missing book or bracelet.
By the time I walked home from school, I accepted the fact that Mary had heard my prayers, thought I was worthy of a break, and made it happen. And the experience has stayed with me simply because her method was so unexpected. I knew that Mary would answer me; however, I didn’t realize she would deserve points for creativity.
