A GIFT FROM HEAVEN

by Maureen O'Hara Pesta

My mother was pulling out all the stops for First Communion Day.

A white organdy dress had arrived from a store back east. So did the veil and tiara. It was time to welcome Jesus into my heart, as Sister Angela taught us, an occasion to be dressed properly.

But the white leather shoes, with their dainty straps and open toes--that was my favorite part of the whole outfit. I could hardly wait for the moment to arrive that I could buckle on those shoes.

That’s because I had been diagnosed with weak arches by the shoe salesman. I had put my feet in the big metal device in the shoe store, with its eerie green radioactive light, and I had seen the bones inside of my feet.

Yes, it was an x-ray machine, right there in the shoe store.

Whenever it was time to buy a new pair of shoes, the shoe salesman would have a look at my feet in his x-ray machine. My weak-arch diagnosis was routinely confirmed. His opinion on the matter seemed to carry the authority of medical doctors.

And the cure? Brown oxfords. Brown, horsy oxfords with fat insoles for fallen arches. Not penny loafers--or anything even faintly stylish. No. Sturdy oxfords with laces as thick as a rope.

So my special First Communion shoes, with their feminine little straps, were a gift from God, you might say.

Adding to the mystique of the big day, two aunts from back east had arrived by overnight train. We went and met them in the early morning darkness and took them home to a big breakfast, served in the dining room with its rose-patterned wallpaper, where we usually only ate dinner.

The table was set with bone china, sterling silver and a lace tablecloth. The aunts wore lace as well -- crepe dresses with lace collars, secured by brooches.

Aunts from the east and open-toe shoes. Communion Day.

Later that morning, sitting back in the church pew after Communion had taken place, I became worried. Waiting for the brittle wafer to dissolve in my mouth, I wondered, shouldn’t I be feeling a whole lot different right now? After all, Jesus is now officially in my heart.

I thought about the saints. Maria Goretti, for instance, who died as a young girl defending her virginity. The glow that surrounded her head, her holy eyes gazing heavenward. We had learned about Saint Maria in first-communion class, a room full of seven-year-old girls puzzling through Maria’s particular circumstances.

Could I admit, even to my secret innermost self, that I had yearned more for white shoes than for communion with God?

I kicked my pretty white shoes nervously against the kneeler. Then, looking down to my hands, clasped in prayer in my lap, I was reminded of my favorite Communion gift of all, the blue enamel miraculous medal with a silver expansion band on my left wrist.