Holy Bendiness

At my grandmother's funeral I experienced one of my favorite religious moments of 2010. It involved a very Catholic woman whom I've known for about twenty one years or so. She was my oldest nephews babysitter, so I have a good benchmark for how long I've known her.

Now, Theresa was a very good babysitter. A little eccentric, but her religiousness didn't ooze out of her too strongly back then. But now? Now it's a different story. Or maybe it was the setting, I will never be sure.

But. At my grandmother's funeral, she had been there for a while with her mother, milling about and such, and came up to my little circle, where I was talking with my cousin and her husband. Right out of the blue she started telling us some stories about the year my grandmother was born, 1917, and how it was that same year that three angels or Mary's or something presented themselves, I think one was called Fatima, and some miracles occurred and blessings were bestowed and then some other magic happened, I had really stopped trying to follow the story and was just nodding with a crooked smiled pasted on my face. So anyhow, something happened in 1917 that really moved her, and it was even more coincidental because the Death Cards that are passed out at funerals had these same angels/Marys/Miracle Ladies on them and it was an even BIGGER omen of something. And I have to be on the lookout for either one or three of these ladies/miracles/Fatimas presenting themselves to me soon, since maybe they'll manifest to me because of my grandmother's death.

And then? She turned to my cousin and asked her about her religious affiliation.

I looked from my uncomfortable cousin, to Theresa, to my cousin's husband and tried to brush off Uncomfortable Conversation with a, "Um, not Catholic!" response. She persisted, as all good Catholics should. When my cousin responded with, "Buddhist" you could see the uncomfortable tables turn just a bit. But then Theresa expounded on Buddhism by asking, "Is that where you meditate and do the yoga and stuff?" Yep, it's where we do the yoga. And stuff. My cousin said something along the lines of not too much yoga, but ya know, maybe some, just to keep everything bendy.

So yeah. One of my favorite religious conversations for 2010. I. CANNOT. WAIT! To see what/who/how many religous miracles/ladies/Fatimas/Marys present themselves to me! I just hope I'm not naked when it happens.

**MAJOR UPDATE**
I decided to go to the Almightie Google for answers, so I'm not nakedly surprised by apparitions some day. Here's the wooo-wooo part of the story: The Lady of Fatima first presented herself on Sophie's BIRTHDAY!!! Our Lady of Fátima is a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary with respect to reported apparitions of her to three shepherd children at Fátima in Portugal on the 13th day of six consecutive months in 1917, starting on May 13.