The First Visitation
On May 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary is said to have visited three shepherd children in the isolated countryside of Fatima, Portugal. She would visit them five times thereafter, offering them secrets to keep, anxieties to burden, and prophecies of their deaths. This grave and glorious visit has inspired millions of pilgrims for over one hundred years to visit the site of the apparition, searching for healing, secrets, and souvenirs (see my first post).
You’ve likely noticed from my website—I’m obsessed with this story. I wrote a novel inspired by this story, imagining it into my childhood, into my hometown, and into my body. I’m not out to prove that it’s real. That’s not the part of the story that keeps me up at night. Lately, I am stuck on how the kids weren’t looking for Mary when she arrived. They were kids in a field. They were playing when she showed up. In a moment when they weren’t expecting, their lives changed, and their legacies grew out before them.
It has been six months since my first blog post. I already failed in the mission I set out for when I started. I’ve spent the past six months trying to mind my own business, go about my daily routine, prep my lunch the night before work, do my laundry on Sundays. For the past six months, I’ve been trying really hard to settle into what I think a successful adult is supposed to be. This website and blog was the first on a list of things I told myself I had to accomplish before I turned 30.
But a bunch of stuff I wasn’t expecting to happen, happened.
I moved out of my partner’s house. I got a new job. I got the flu. I let go of what I thought my life was going to look like. I transitioned out of being a teacher and said goodbye to my students, who I honestly care about more than I care about myself. I made a nine pound lamb shank for Easter lunch with my family. I reconciled with two lost friends. I watched my father lose his mother. I learned how to be angry at someone who wronged me. I stopped telling people I was fine. I cried with my sister. I sang in the car with my sister. I leant a shoulder and some nights out to a brave friend who carries the weight of her family. I did a core workout with my mom.
Over the past six months, I have been visited, over and over again, by something that I don’t understand. I hear whispers at night, and I can’t close my eyes. I’m terrified of what will come next. Of what the next thing on the list will be. And then in some moments, I am overcome with gratitude that my list is so long and full of life—even though much of the past six months has been ugly.
As a child, I loved the children of Fatima because they endured great amounts of worry and didn’t flounder in their tenacity. When they told their parents and their priest that Mary visited them on the hillside, their families accused them of being liars. A local official threatened to burn them in a cauldron of oil. They were ridiculed, spit on, and insulted. They were nine, eight, and seven.
But they went back to the hillside on the thirteenth of every month for six consecutive months, just like Mary asked them. They went back in June. They went in July, in August, in September. They went one last time in October, and Mary gave them a miracle. They didn’t know what waited for them on the hill. It could have been the cauldron of oil, vicious adults, the Virgin Mary, snakebites, punches, poison, miracles, or disease.
They didn’t know what was coming next, but they kept showing up. My resolve is keep my eyes open. To finish writing the story, the blog, the essay, the book, the proposal. To run mile after mile. To love, to curse, to establish boundaries, to stay out late. To search for new things to nurture.
To show up on the hillside.