Waiting for the Great Pumpkin

For those of you unfamiliar with Roman Catholic idiosyncracies, it is customary for the faithful – and some of the unfaithful, too – to pray to the many saints for intercession with God. In any and every situation, for every need, there is a saint to whom one might turn for help. Some sixteen years ago, I turned to St. Gerard Majella, whose feast day is October 16th. If you’re from the Newark, New Jersey area, or you’re Italian-American – or if you happen to be named Gerard – you may recognize St. Gerard’s importance.

He is the patron saint of mothers. Expectant mothers. Women who would like to be mothers – usually a despairing bunch when unfulfilled in purpose. I found myself to be among them once. Married for a number of years, wishing to open our hearts to a child. Except it didn’t happen quite that easily. So I turned to St. Gerard. Certainly, his intercession – along with the obvious – would prove obliging. Relics and prayer cards and medals and masses. These are the things devotion is made of. Devotion which, if precisely carried out, would result in the gift of a baby. For those of you who aren’t so religious, it is sort of like waiting for the Great Pumpkin to rise out of the sincerest of pumpkin patches. I’m sorry if that’s irreverent, but it’s the only thing which comes to mind. (After all, this is the time of year to write to the Great Pumpkin.)

My sincerity was unquestionable. My devotion unassailable. And so the Great Pumpkin – I mean, St. Gerard – offered his gracious intercession, and I was granted my pregnancy. Regardless of who had intervened on my behalf, this child was a gift from God. We were grateful beyond measure, and I was thankful to St. Gerard. Of course I was. We’re always content when we receive exactly what we wanted. Who was I to question the reality of St. Gerard’s influence in divine affairs?

After the birth of my older son, I thanked St. Gerard heartily. When things didn’t go very well for him, and he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, I still thanked him. He was our blessing. I thanked St. Gerard again when I was given the gift of another beautiful baby boy a few years later. 

This was easy, right? Babies? Sure, just ask St. Gerard. He’s dropping them from heaven like flies, forget about it. Or, should I say, fuhgeddaboudit? Because he’s especially looking out for us Italian girls, no?

Then, one October 16th, I awoke to find my son dead.

I had forgotten it was St. Gerard’s feast day. Gratitude is funny like that. Often, when something is given, we forget to be thankful over time. It was the same for me and St. Gerard. As my young children were no longer babies, he had fallen off my radar. So had religion. The forgetting to be thankful morphed into anger for my older son’s multitude of medical problems. 

Thanks a lot, St. Gerard. You, too, God. Thanks for making my kid suffer like this. My family. It’s amazing how self-centered we can be. Always looking to blame.

That’s how St. Gerard eventually came to occupy the number one spot on my shit list. 

He stayed there for a year.

Then Tyler was born, a year later, on October 16th. Tyler is the son of one of our dearest friends. A friend who had cared for our children, who loved them, whose wedding they were part of, and whom we considered family. She, too, had traveled a long road in order to become a mother. Of course, although thrilled for her and her husband, I couldn’t help but secretly feel St. Gerard’s sharp medal resentfully digging into my back. Did it have to be October 16th? 

Yes. Yes, it did. And now I am appreciative.

A few months ago, our friend actually apologized to us for giving birth on that day. Apologized. As though she’d had any control over it. She did not. I did not. St. Gerard did not. It doesn’t work that way. Magical thinking is just that – magical thinking. I don’t need to be angry with St. Gerard anymore. I can go back to enjoying zeppoles at his feast every year at St. Lucy’s in Newark, the national shrine of St. Gerard and where Tyler’s christening was celebrated.  It isn’t that I no longer acknowledge the sanctity of saints or the importance of prayer – it’s that I understand they possess no magical powers. What happens, happens. Our faith is what gets us through it. Not magical incantations, enchanted relics, or mysterious acts. Just faith.  And love.  (And possibly a little synchronicity, brought to you from beyond – St. Gerard, maybe?)

I remain faithful that there is a purpose in all things, good and bad. In that way, my pumpkin patch is the sincerest of them all.