Hello, friends. This is one of those "I told you that story so I could tell you this one" moments.
First, though, I just finished knitting something that involves non-knitting construction. It is a tablet pyramid, but without the foam or poly-fil, it looks like a really depressed throw pillow. So, there is that.
So, in order to read today's post, you need to catch up on a post from 10 years ago. The Original Baby Jesus Story can be found here. I recommend reading it before going any further.
"Life-sized Baby Jesus" has been a haunting theme in my life for decades. I am Catholic, but I am the generation after the Guilt Catholics, so I can have a bit more lighthearted of a sense of humor about the stiffness of the church. It turns out, so can my mom and my aunt.
Also, my friend PJ, who is mentioned in the other blog post, has found that the phrase is an accurate depiction of life in the front yard of Chicago homes, vivid enough to be used to describe a horrific scene at Midway Airport. The phrase does not have to be humorous to be compelling.
My aunt is visiting from Florida this week, and it is more of a power-visit, racing against the clock to get their genealogy papers in order. I of course volunteer to help, whenever this comes up. I have a subscription to newspapers.com, and it is the best $150 per year I spend, including 7-Eleven coffee every morning. I looked up obituaries for them.
What made this super-duper fun is that they were looking up the Drzastwa family, so of course I got to flex my Duolingo Polish muscles. And by "flex," I mean that I could pronounce the words correctly and then say something like, "Ooh...this is the social page and the report says they were visiting friends out-of-town!" It felt like a hell of an accomplishment to learn enough of a Slavik language in a year and a half to do that.
Over the weekend, I opened the cabinet with the garbage can, so I could throw something away. Amid the papers on the dining room table going to a shredder box, and all of the organized piles of things they were keeping placed neatly in a line along one side, the garbage can held an interesting treasure. Sticking out from the side of the plastic bag was a bejeweled crown. I figured it was a silly old liquor bottle from the 1970's. Oh, no...friends, it was a porcelain Infant Jesus of Prague doll.
I walked down the hall with it in my hand. Jesus was missing one jewel from his crown, and his blessing hand had broken off, so there was a gaping hole in his right side (of course, Jesus would be depicted as both white and right-handed...why make him the Israeli lefty that he most likely was?). I see my mom and my aunt walking toward me, so I gestured to the statue. "Was this the one from Aunt Starlene, or the one from your mom?"
And...the can of emotional worms was open. This post should have come with a trigger warning, sorry.
My mom unintentionally raised her voice. "No, no...oh no. This is a third one! You should have heard me when I opened the damn box and found this thing...it was like, 'Are you kidding me?'"
So, take away the humor for a second. This is a box my mom most likely had opened in the past. It was full of her parents' financial records, other genealogical copies, and old photos. But, behold! Yet Another Infant Jesus Of Prague! Hence, the curse. I can trace the other two, but this one, I am certain, was plopped in there by a dead relative, and it was their way of saying "quit reading our Polish-language obituaries already."
Well, it turns out there was an entire box of Catholic shit accompanying this doll, including his Liberace-style regalia, clearly handmade with love and gorgeous stichery, if you could separate the fact that it is used to dress a porcelain religious figure with only one hand.
There was a blessing from the Pope, most likely brought by Father Tom when he was visiting from California (he was my great uncle). There was a blessing from the Pope for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary.
There were rosaries upon rosaries upon rosaries.
There were two random medals, Our Lady of Olives, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel. We do not know their purpose in my grandmother's life, but there must have been one.
And...then there was the last photo, below. The item in the bottom left contains a seven-foot long rosary in the twist-off portion of the bottom. Then, there is the cross, the teeny Infant Jesus of Prague (I think...might be a Cardinal), the personal holy-water thermos on the right (there is a proper name for that, too), and then the thing at the top.
The item at the top is some sort of dildo-shaped box with pop-open doors, and Jesus appears like a music box to pray at you or something. What is amazing about this item is it can also be found in Joel Dovev's book, Crap At My Parents' House. Joel, I feel you.
I reached out to my friend Father Jim, who is a priest in the city. He already knew about the two original baby Jesus dolls, because when I was in his rectory once, he jokingly asked if I wanted a life-sized bust of Pope John Paul II, so I explained to him that my mom would LOVE it. The Pope landed in Mom's freezer, and it took her a few weeks to find him.
As you may have read above, my mom was not too pro on throwing out Baby Jesus, but this third one was akin to Phoebe trying to get rid of the beeping smoke alarm on the television show "Friends." I understand why it was in the trash. I asked Father what the proper way of disposing of a porcelain Infant Jesus of Prague doll with a broken and missing blessing hand was (it should be noted that my aunt looked for the missing blessing hand in the box, and it was not there; further proof this was just a curse from a dead Polish relative). He said that the proper way was to destroy it and bury the dust.
Well. The can of worms was suddenly an art project.
This turned into the highlight of my aunt's trip. They went up to my mom's "wooden house" in Michigan, and when I called to ask what their plans were, they had really done their due diligence on how to contain Jesus' pieces. They had discussed how to keep the dust contained, how to get the larger pieces into smaller pieces for easy burial, and the best type of earth in which to bury the dust. Their original plan was to roll over it with the car.
I liked that idea, but with a house like that one, I also felt they were missing a golden opportunity to toss it off of a loft.
Friends, here is the ceremonial pulverization of the Third Infant Jesus of Prague, in three parts. It was not smooth sailing, as it turned out; the head was on some sort of "wire lollipop." Enjoy.
Oh...and please, pray for us.
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