A stitch at a time and c’est la vie

In the Roman Catholic calendar, today is the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, a Holy Day of Obligation. This separates us from our Eastern Orthodox friends who believed in dormition. I’m no theologian, so here’s the gist: The Orthodox believe that Mary went to sleep for three days, and the Roman Catholics made the assumption that she went directly to heaven. In South Ozone Park, the feast was celebrated with the priests and altar boys of St. Anthony of Padua Church carrying a statue of the Blessed Mother around the neighborhood, up and down Rockaway Boulevard, and the parishioners taping money to her, sort of like “Pin the tail on the Virgin.”

During the long, hot summer, it was our reminder that the days were getting shorter, and we would soon return to school. For me it meant getting back to normal.

But in 1970, the Feast of the Assumption fell on a Saturday, which I greatly resented, because it meant back-to-back liturgies, Saturday and Sunday. Moreover, we were on summer vacation in Yaphank, so we had to trek all the way to St. Frances Cabrini Church in Coram.

That spring Pop and Nurse Vivian moved the family to Woodhaven, almost directly under the elevated J train. It was a distance of less than 5 miles, certainly not the same as sending a son to boarding school in Texas, but for me it was trauma. And Aug. 15 meant that I would not be returning to St. Anthony of Padua, but rather, Nurse Vivian enrolled me in PS 60.

The teacher was this kind lady named Mrs. Roth. I caught up quickly in math and history (there being much less of it in those days), but the other sixth-graders had already had two years of French, and Mrs. Roth decided to give me an art project instead, for her French Fair in April.

She handed me a cerulean blue thread, and while the other students learned

merci and de rien, I sat in the back, my needle going in and out of this huge canvas. A little jealous of the other boys — who I imagined at cafes, wearing berets and eating quiche — I persevered, not really knowing what I was sewing as fall turned to winter turned to spring and I had learned no French, but then, two weeks before the pageant, I realized that a thousand stitches later, all along I had been sewing the sky over Notre-Dame.

Two years ago, my fairy godsister sent Brian and me to Paris for our honeymoon, long after the honey had worn off the moon. Just before the trip, my coworker Ali, who was actually descended from a French count, said, “You better learn some phrases. The French don’t expect you to speak their language well, but they expect you to try.” She showed me Duolingo, and for 20 days, I crammed

bons mots into my head. When I got to la cité des lumières, though my French impressed no one, I made sure sure that we ordered du vin with our croque monsieur. Never did get the beret, and never once saw quiche on the menu, but I did have caviar and Champagne.

But I didn’t give up when I got home. Past tense. Subjunctive tense. Drives Brian crazy. Je practice every day. Now, mind you, there’s no one in the entire outer, outer, outer, outer, outer Excelsior to whom I can parlez le français, but for me it’s getting back to normal.

We made a lot of assumptions when Brian and I fostered children. We assumed our lives would be predictable. But parenting means moving from one crisis to the next with as much calm as we can muster. And in the meantime, I hang onto my two vices: French and needlepoint. All through the long afternoons at the therapist’s office, or waiting for the high school principal to yell at me one more time, I turn to mon nouveau language app, and even those long afternoons in the hospital, practiced my conjunctions. In all this, Aidan recognizes only one phrase. I call him mon petit loup, my little wolf.

Made a lot of adjustments trying to cycle down from this summer’s disasters: I sit in Zane’s seat at the dinner table so our trio’s hands can reach for grace. I huddle with Aidan under the blankets while watching TV, just as Zane used to do. But still I know that things are not normal. While others smoke, I conjugate.

That’s what life is like. We don’t pin dollars on virgins anymore. But when we stop making assumptions, we stitch one day into the next, and we don’t know what we’re doing, and all at once we’ve got un coin du ciel, a corner of the sky.

The other had sixthgraders already had two years of French, and Mrs. Roth decided to give me an art project instead.