The Medal
The truth was Margaret loved her Grandfather Conway very much. He lived with Grandma Conway in a large blue-gray Victorian house on Junction Blvd in Jackson Heights. The house was the only one on that side of the street and it sat next to a big open space called "The Lots." The Lots wasn't actually empty: here and there was an old tire, or an overturned basket from the A&P a block away. It was a place where people didn't mind dumping their refuse: a stained, smelly old mattress or packs of string-tied newspapers. Weeds grew throughout, but there were no trees. So it appeared to be an empty expanse of space. A path had been worn diagonally across it because people walking from 34th Avenue over to Blessed Incarnation Church on 35th Avenue and 94th Street would take the shortest route. It was this path Margaret usually took to school every morning.
It was a time when first or second graders could walk to school alone and no parent gave a moment's thought to it. No parents gathered at the school at 3 o'clock to pick up their children in cars. So in that respect I guess it was a simpler time, a certainly less worrisome time.
Margaret never caught a glimpse of her grandfather when she passed his house on her way to school; she saw him only on weekends when her parents would take her to visit. Today Margaret never thinks of him that he isn't sitting in his easy chair in the very dark living room of the blue-gray Victorian house. The living room was always dark even in the middle of the day. If you ask Margaret now why that was so, she can't tell you because she can't remember. Were there heavy drapes? (she doesn't think there were), or blinds? Maybe the windows were too small, or, as was probably the case, the northeastern exposure allowed very little sun to penetrate.
Margaret will never forget, though, the dark and lovely roll-top mahogany desk next to her grandfather's chair. She had a great curiosity about it and longed to open all the little drawers, but there was a rule about not touching it. And Margaret was at a point in her life when she was very obedient.
So her grandfather was sitting in his easy chair when she and her parents arrived. She wasn't ever afraid of him although she saw him infrequently. He would hold out his hand to her and when she approached he would bark just like a dog:
"Bow! Bow-wow-wow!"
And Margaret would laugh. He had always done this, so it wasn't frightening as you might think it would be. Margaret would laugh because it was the funniest thing any of her grandparents said or did. Actually none of her other grandparents ever said or did anything that was funny at all.
Grandfather Conway was in his early 60s but he appeared old to Margaret. He had gray, thinning hair, sallow skin and a bulbous nose he called the "Conway nose" which he was damn proud of. He didn't notice Margaret's nose was very much like his own so he never teased her about it the way he had her mother. He was always dressed in a dark suit with a vest and a faux gold watch fob (Margaret thought it was real gold) draped from one pocket of the vest to the other. He had been a chauffeur for a very rich family and when they retired him they gave him a pension and the Victorian house in which he and his wife now lived.
He was a Protestant from the north of Ireland and, apparently, this was a problem. Margaret knew there was something wrong because Grandfather Conway never came to church with the rest of the family. His church was on 98th Street, around the corner from where Margaret lived in a two-family yellow frame house with her parents. He always went to his church alone. Once or twice Margaret had gone around the block to stand in front of his church. She was curious, but she knew she wasn't allowed to go in because that would be a sin. But she liked the church from the outside. It was so much smaller than the ostentatious Blessed Incarnation which took up a whole block in all directions including, in addition to the Church, a rectory, a convent, and an elementary school. Her grandfather's church was brown, and shaped like an "A". There was a beautiful stained-glass window in the front that lit up on cloudy days. The church was surrounded by green lawn and gravestones, thin, gray ones, that had writing on them that was unreadable.
Much later in her life, Margaret learned her grandfather was Episcopalian and that his religion was very similar to hers. At the time, though, it seemed rather that their religions were miles apart. For one thing she had been told Catholicism was the one, true religion; all other religions were false. The only way he could get to heaven was if he didn't know any better and believed his religion true. The problem was since he was a member of a Roman Catholic family and married to a devout Roman Catholic, how could he claim not to know? Margaret worried about her grandfather from time to time. But then he did something that convinced her in her heart of hearts that he would get to heaven.
It was spring and the second-graders of Blessed Incarnation were about to receive their First Holy Communion. They had studied the questions in the Baltimore Catechism and had been tested:
"Who made you?"
"God made me."
"Why did God make you?"
"God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven."
"What must we do to save our souls?"
"To save our souls, we must worship God by faith, hope, and charity; that is, we must believe in Him, hope in Him, and love Him with all our heart."
"How shall we know the things which we are to believe?"
"We shall know the things which we are to believe from the Catholic Church, through which God speaks to us."
Margaret had done very well and she was ready to receive for the first time the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the form of the communion wafer. There had been a lot of practicing in Church. A lot of sticking out of the tongue, a lot of pious walking up and down the center aisle, head bent, hands brought together in the form of an "A". Just like grandpa's church, Margaret thought to herself.
The Saturday before "the most important occasion of her life" (as Grandma Conway described it), Margaret's mother took her to buy a communion dress. The veil was to be provided (for a small fee) by Blessed Incarnation school along with a pair of white rosary beads and a small prayer book bound in mother of pearl with a gold crucifix imbedded in the front cover. It turned out to be a rather unpleasant experience both for Margaret and her mother.
Margaret at seven years old was plump. Too plump, it seemed, to fit into any of the pretty, lacy, white Communion dresses sold in the stores. Margaret wanted lace and seed pearls and something called "organza" but she had to settle for a plain white cotton dress with straight lines and no frills.
"It was slimming," said her mother.
It was the first of many sad and unhappy shopping trips she and her mother were to make together.
On the day of her First Holy Communion Margaret was summoned to Grandfather Conway's house before she, her parents, and Grandma Conway were to attend the ceremony. After he barked at her and she laughed, he told her to open one of the small drawers in the roll-top desk.
He said, "I bet you'll find a present in there."
Margaret was sure this was to be a very special present since she was about to touch the forbidden desk. Tentatively she drew open the little drawer her grandfather had pointed to, and took out a small silver cardboard box, the kind of box jewelry came in, the kind of box her father had given her mother last Christmas.
It was a silver medal on a chain: a miraculous medal with a picture of the Blessed Mother on the front and twelve stars encircling a large "M" from which a cross arose on the reverse. Beneath the "M" were the hearts of Jesus and Mary. Margaret held it gently in her hand and looked up at her Protestant grandfather. Could it be that he believed?
A miraculous medal was supposed to have come directly from Mary, the mother of Jesus. Over 120 years ago, she had appeared to St. Catherine Labour�, standing on a globe with light streaming from each of her hands, with the words "O Mary, conceived without original sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee" surrounding her figure. Catherine was told to have a medal struck in an exact likeness. Mary said all who wore the medal would be rewarded with an abundance of God's graces. It was said the medal's greatest miracles were those of patience, forgiveness, repentance, and faith. This was the sort of thing only Catholics believed in. But could it be Grandpa Conway believed in the miraculous medal? She knew Protestants were really against likenesses and statues of saints. That they accused Catholics of idol worship when they prayed to these saints instead of to God.
Margaret hugged her grandfather very tightly and her throat hurt and her eyes stung. He helped her open the chain and put it on, closing it from behind. Surely if he believed in the medal, he would go to heaven and be with her and the rest of the family forever and ever, Margaret thought. When they went to church, they left him there in the dark living room sitting in his easy chair.
A year later Margaret was left to play in the park as her grandfather lay dying in the blue-gray Victorian house across the street. Her mother and grandmother kept vigil at the side of his bed which had been brought down to the piano room at the front of the house. She was not invited to be there. Something about not exposing children to the horrors of final death throes.
When her grandfather had been dead a very long time, and Margaret no longer believed in miracles and visions, she would take the medal out of the drawer on the right-hand side of her own bedroom dresser, hold it gently in her hand, and think if there was a heaven, and she wasn't entirely sure there was, her Grandpa Conway would be there, with her father and Grandma Conway, barking at the children and making them laugh.
