Thanks to all who thought of us on Sunday morning. My son's First Communion went -- okay. I had dreamed that he would magically find the self discipline to sit quietly through Mass and stand up at the altar with his peers, respectful and straight of spine, filled with spiritual peace and calmness. That didn't happen. But I had feared that he would appear possessed, jumping and shouting and twitching in his seat, such a bundle of disrespect and wilfull uncontrol that we'd have to drag him out of the sanctuary before his big moment came. And that didn't happen either (though there were a few minutes at the start of Mass that I'd like to try again). He was pretty much as he always is at church, unable to sit normally but able to make it through if he's lying down across a lap or two and allowing himself to be sleepy. That pretty much precluded the standing-at-the-altar part of the morning, but that was okay. He did his thing at communion time just fine, and that's what was important all along.

 

It's good, I guess, every now and then, to have these little check-ups as to where we're at. There was a time, certainly, where he would not even be able to do as well as he did. And there will be a time, I feel certain, when he will do better. As it was, the lady sitting in front of us told me afterward that she thought my son had done particularly well, and another mother mentioned that she'd had to correct her sixth-grader during the Mass more than I'd had to correct my guy. There may have been a few raised eyebrows amongst congregants who don't know him, wondering why we were letting that communion kid roll around in the pew in his nice suit. But people who knew him saw a difference, and were proud of him, and that's good, too. Maybe, really, better than admiration of behavioral perfection.