A Reading from The Book of Friends
The Silent Liturgy of the Word
A child doesn’t have anything to juxtapose their reality with until they start spending time with peers, especially when they spend significant time at peers’ homes, observing. Engrossed. Until then, everything just is the way it is. Children don’t know life any differently - how people maintain the cleanliness of their homes (or don’t), how they argue and come to resolution (or don’t), or what exotic snacks are tucked away in the refrigerators. There’s so much anthropological wonderment that occurs in childhood. My insatiable curiosity led me to mind altering discoveries around kindergarten and first grade.
My first-grade best friend, Sanja, lived a very different life than me with her mom and brother on the other side of Peach Street near our school. She had a little brother and I didn't. Her mom worked and mine stayed at home. Her pantry had Count Chocula and my lazy susan hosted Frosted Flakes. Their house was nestled close to other houses while mine was on a slightly sloped acre. Many fun afternoons were spent in Sanja's house on the hill.
Both in and out of school, Sanja and I were inseparable. Students at a Catholic grade school, we shared our crayons, read from our SRA books side-by-side and found a way to enrich our education by creating a foreign language of sorts. With our pink, melamine cafeteria trays in hand, we talked about creating a secret finger code. Over sips from our chocolate milk boxes, we practiced tracing letters on our plaid skirts to spell out messages to one another. Between letters, we’d make a fist and gently tap our laps to signify that we understood the word that the other was trying to convey. After about a week of practicing, we gave it a try in class. Sanja tapped on her plaid jumper: “G. L. U. E.” I responded by holding up my Elmer’s bottle. We smiled. “B.O.O.K” I codified back, and she grabbed the cloth-covered “Dick and Jane” off her desk. We were elated! With brazen confidence, Sanja planned to use our sacrosanct pew-side secret signals at Mass.
Silently, we walked with our classmates in two single-file lines, down the hallway, past the principal’s office, up the ramp and into the church. We snickered as we dipped our fingers into the Holy Water and made the Sign of the Cross. Sliding down the lacquered wooden pews, we giggled as we grabbed the kneelers and plunked them down into place. We obediently folded our hands and bowed our heads in prayerful adoration. Jesus loved us, this we knew, for the Bible told us so... so surely, He would help us get away with our mischievous mission.
Catholic elementary school teachers rarely get to absorb the sermons at Mass because they’re charged with shepherding about 30 little bored and wiggly children fussing under their watch. Sanja and I knew the opportunity was at the sermon and patiently waited. We knew to keep our heads facing the altar and took our standing-kneeling-sitting cues out of our peripherals. Impressed with our clever, secret language, Sanja and I sat next to one another and started up a silent conversation.
About a month into our secret communications, our overzealous confidence (or our tattle-tale classmates) tipped off the teacher. I think she was a bit impressed with our ingenuity, but, to our dismay, we weren’t allowed to sit next to each other for a while after our apprehension. Thankfully, we hadn’t made our First Penance yet because I’m certain we’d be up to our ears in Hail Mary’s.
The Revelation at the Breaking of the Bread
Sitting on the carpet in music class, quenching our thirst at the water fountain, during dreaded dodgeball and smacking the dusty chalk out of the soft, black erasers, everywhere in school, Sanja and I were joined at the hip. Outside of school, we spent lots of time together, too - giggling with flashlights hunkered down in our sleeping bags and eating Jiffy Popped popcorn until the wee hours of the morning. Sanja couldn’t have sleepovers every weekend. She explained that sometimes she spent those days with her father, who lived in a different house. Not understanding the concept of divorce (beecause my parents weren't) but seeing how it hurt my friend, who could only see me on the weekends she was with her mother, I engaged in a concerned discussion with my parents about divorce over dinner one day. In public. In front of my maternal grandmother.
“Daddy, when you and mommy get your divorce, who am I going to live with?” I asked. Dad choked on his water. Grandma Hazel shot him a sideways hex of a glance as her fork stopped in midair. Mom raised a curious eyebrow while keeping her eyes fixed on her salad. Grandma had no idea that my parents were getting a divorce, and apparently my parents weren’t aware of it either.
“When Mommy and I get a divorce?” He wiped the vestiges of water from the corners of his lips with the linen napkin and replaced it upon his lap.
“Yeah. Who am I going to live with?” I noticed that Grandma wasn’t eating anything. Her ears wanted to digest every word my father was going to offer.
“What made you think that Mommy and I were going to get a divorce?” he asked. Grandma wasn’t convinced that this topic was novel to me. Mom contemplatively ate the radishes from her salad.
“Well, Sanja’s parents got a divorce and Sanja lives with her Mommy. So, when you guys get your divorce, who am I going to live with?” I hungrily reached out for a dinner roll, which Grandma passed my way, following it up with the butter pats and butter knife, vexed.
Curious about my thoughts, perhaps, but more likely wanting to dodge the invitation to answer such a question in front of Grandma Hazel, Dad strategically put the question back onto me. “Well, who do you want to live with?”
Mouth all but muted by a dinner roll, I managed to mutter, “Both of you. But I couldn’t do that. I’d have to split myself in half, and half of me would live with you and half of me would live with Mommy.”
“Well,” Dad barely chuckled, not wanting me to think that he wasn’t taking me seriously. It was a very serious matter, and he could see how concerned his little empathic daughter was about this heart-wrenching matter. “I don’t think that would work very well, sweetheart. I think you would die if you cut yourself in half.” Mom speared a cherry tomato and swirled it in her Thousand Island.
“How about this,” he proposed. “How about you go live with Mommy, and then I’ll come and live with you guys?” Mom let a smile escape and Grandma looked at me with bated breath.
My father was a genius! Relieved that my parents’ divorce would be only semantics, I was satisfied with the answer and heartily agreed. “Yes! Yes! I’d like that!” and I got up and wrapped my arms around my father’s neck, squeezing him tightly in an embrace. He laughed and hugged me back. It was settled. We’d all live together. Grandma smiled and picked up her salad fork. Dad retrieved his napkin and patted his brow. Mom quaffed a long drink of water, and I cheerfully chewed the cherries from my Shirley Temple, excited to call Sanja when I got home and tell her all about it.