My final day of this journey with Mom and Dad keeps pace with the rest of our days, while entailing a bit more statuary and church relics.

As we bid farewell to our condo in Door County to make our way back to Madison so I can fly out early for my annual Tribe weekend in Michigan with eight of my closest girlfriends, Dad almost veers off the road when he sees a restaurant that he's convinced he must patron.    

Rusty Tractor Café.  When asked why this is his choice and why he's so excited about it, he tells Mom and me some tragic story about the tractor being a piece of machinery that has been super reliable and has supported hard-working farmers decade after decade, to ultimately just be left out to pasture to rust. He finishes this compelling story with a "you know... kind of like me."

Mom and I roll our eyes and simultaneously mutter something about expecting so much more than that pathetic story. After breakfast, however, we realize that the real reason he wanted to stop was to drive the nonfunctional tractor.

The look on my face says it all.

Post breakfast results in the three of us finally experiencing the last of the lighthouses on Mom's lighthouse tour (I spoke too soon when I professed that the Cana Island Lighthouse would finally suffice).  And, as luck would have it, Mom actually got to see all 10 lighthouses. Yep, that's my mom. She has a vision, and she manifests it. I am proud to have acquired my own manifesting powers from this woman (and also, for the record, my perky boobs.  I digress).

To complete our riveting itinerary before returning to Madison for good food and some sleep, we make a stop at The National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help (yes, that is the actual name). This is the Marian shrine standing on the site where Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared to a nun named Adele Brise in the mid-1800s.

I've visited my share of shrines in this lifetime, but I am admittedly having a hard time being serious at this one because I keep making connections between the people in the old 1800s photographs and the characters they resemble in modern day pop culture. Every time I see a photo of anyone from the 1800s, I think some cheeky thought about how they remind me of a munchkin from the Wizard of Oz, or Damien from that hideous movie, The Omen, or Rush Limbaugh, or the Evil Emperor in Star Wars.  It is incessant, and I can't control it.

As we begin our self-guided tour by descending stairs near a sign reading "Apparition Site," I share with my parents my confusion as to why the Blessed Mother would choose to appear to Sr. Adele in a church basement.  

Dad assures me that the building was later built atop the place in which Mary appeared. I'm still not sure why we have to descend below ground level to get to the apparition site, but think I should just drop it for now. Besides, I am too distracted and slightly freaked out by a large framed photo of Pope Francis that eerily resembles Mr. Magoo. 

After sitting in front of a large statue of Mary, the Blessed Mother amidst hundreds of burning candles, I emerge from the crypt to join Dad outside in the sun (I'm still baffled by the underground aspect of it all, but I decide to just drop it).  

Dad is searching for the gravesite of Sr. Adele. I turn and point to a small 8-person graveyard to the side of the shrine.

"Good eye, Née Née!  Good eye," Dad exclaims, and rushes past me.

I catch up to him and we walk together to the flower-laden gravestone where lie the remains of a woman to whom Mary appeared, and we stand in silence for a second. The brief quietude is interrupted when dad says, "Your Uncle Jim asked your mom to gather and send to him some dirt from nearby the gravestone of Sr. Adele's grave. I need to find a plastic bag."

"Is that okay to do, Dad?"  I ask.

"It is if no one catches us,"  Dad retorts. 

"Wow. I'm so glad my moral compass was partially influenced by you, Dad," I sass, knowing my uncle Jimmy would find this effort slightly sacrilegious.

With that, I bend down, use my fingers like talons to dig into the moist dirt and grasp a handful of grave soil for my mother to give to my uncle.  

As I'm bent-kneed on the ground waiting for Dad to return with a plastic bag, I think of all the times as a little girl that I'd prayed that Mary or Jesus or some well-known, or not-so-well-known, saint would appear to me and validate my existence, or give me a sign about all the things I'd never actually experienced but to which I kept offering homage. To no avail.

This leads to a memory from my sophomore year in college, struggling to make sense of the fact that I had recently validated my suspicion that I was a lesbian. I recall the night that I signed up to sit silently in All Night Adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament.  

My hour of visitation is from 1AM - 2AM, for which my only job is to hold vigil and not leave the consecrated Christ alone. I remember the main point of my prayer is a request that the almighty Son of the Source of All Things finally reveal Himself to me and just sit with me and have a conversation, like a big brother would do. I need someone who knows a thing or two to help me through this recent realization and the anticipated transition I am about to experience.  

So, I beg. I bargain. I make deals about things I will and won't do if he appears to me. Hell, Mary has historically appeared to scared children and unsuspecting individuals who weren't, as far as I know, on bended knee begging to have a conversation with her. Why them? Why hasn't the kid who has visited the Blessed Sacrament with her dad almost every night of her young life been gifted with an apparition by someone divine? Anyone! I'd have even taken a sighting of the lowliest of cherubs.

I wait within that hour for something to happen, and the longer I wait and no one comes, the more I begin to get pissed. I start talking out loud, cussing even, and threatening that if Christ or someone who could speak on His behalf in the heavenly realms doesn't appear, I will storm out of here and leave him all alone, like He was leaving me all alone in this moment and struggling with this seemingly major life issue.

Nothing happens. So I stand, flip off the tabernacle (because back then flipping things off made us feel powerful and cool; now it just makes us look dumb), turn my back and walk out of the chapel, sobbing all the way to my dorm– mostly out of guilt that I have just flipped off and cussed out the Son of Man, but also because I now feel even more alone, isolated and afraid to navigate something for which I have no reference.

That was 28 years ago. My juvenile threat apparently made absolutely no impression. To this day, still no apparitions.

In addition to revisiting this pivotal moment in my faith journey, and as I walk the grounds of the shrine, Mom shares with me that my dad has always wanted to make a pilgrimage to Garabandal, Spain because the Blessed Mother appeared to some other unsuspecting persons on the actual day of my birth–  November 13, 1965.

To lighten my own repentant mood from reminiscing about shouting expletives at Jesus, and to entertain Mom and Dad, I stand and re-enact what I figure Mary the Mother of God would likely have said as she addressed the people to whom she appeared on the actual day of my birth. It goes something like this:

"Remember my son, Jesus?   Well today to you is born a daughter, her name too begins with 'J-e'. She will likely not be as famous as my son, he kind of cornered the market with his popularity after transcending death, but don't underestimate my girl child. She is born on this day; hence my appearance to you now."

Mom and Dad think it's cute for about 5 seconds, then Dad abandons us (with an eye-roll) to go watch a video about the miracle that took place right where we were standing during a fire in the 1800s that literally spared the entire property of Our Lady of Good Help from the flames that consumed everything around it.  

Sheesh.  I'm always getting trumped by my divine older brother.