When I was 16 years old, I failed the test for my driver’s license. It was parallel parking that got me, or rather, that I didn’t get. When the police officer told me that I would have to come back to take the parking test over, I could hardly believe it, “Did I hit the curb?” He was matter of fact with his response, “Son, you went over the curb.”
I was embarrassed. Mom drove me home. For two weeks I fretted. Mom drove me back. I passed.
As I typed the previous five, short sentences, it surprised me when I saw that between “embarrassed” and “fretted” was “mom.” And between “fretted” and “passed” was “mom.” My mother was right in the middle of my embarrassment, my fretting and my passing.
Later, when mom got much older, and she gave up her driver’s license, I was driving her everywhere. One night, yes, I know we should not have been out, we left the Little Sisters of the Poor nursing home, where mom lived in Clifton. It was a rainy evening, with freezing temperatures. Going down Riddle Road toward McMicken Avenue, past the “s” turn, there is a significant hill. That night it was ice! Instinctively I said, “Mom, I’ll drive. You pray.” We got to the bottom of the hill just fine. My driving skills? My mother’s prayers?
Whenever we’d be out and about, mom was always praying for parking places. Maybe she was thinking that, if there were a good and easy place to park, there would be less chance that I would hurt her, while I was trying to park. Her prayer sure found good parking places. Amazing how often, when curb parking was necessary, mom found two open places right together, so I could just pull in and not have to do that back up thing. At a shopping mall she’d find a place that I could pull all the way through, so that I would not have to back out later. We older people love that kind.
Oh, who is “Mark” in the title of this post? He comes to Mass here at St. Andrew. He passed his driver’s test yesterday. (Shhh! It was his second try for part of it.) . His mom had put aside everything else in her day, and would not allow anything to get in the way of going with her son for that test. Nobody else was going to go with him but her. Congratulations, Mark, on having the mother you have, and on having the driver’s license you now have, too.
In the “Hail Mary,” we ask our Blessed Mother to pray for us “now” and “at the hour of our death.” Being our heavenly mother, just like my earthly mother and your earthly mother, she wants us to have and be happy with whatever God knows is best for us to have – and she especially wants us to pass the final test that comes to us at our passing. Amen.
With Open Doors 
Amen….from Mark’s mom!
I’ll second that Amen…AND Congratulations to Mark from “Stick” (Mark’s Aunt Micki)
it took me two times to pass because of parallel parking also, but I can still do,it when I haveto. Congrats mark. Grandma and Grandpa