nighttime prayers

Anna never ceases to amaze me. We've been saying prayers together in the boys' room for a couple of weeks now, and she's a full participant: she remembers classmates, present and former, teachers, friends, our parish priest, and most of the regulars at Faith & Light. Anna reminds me of people we've not seen in ages, and I sometimes wonder whether she knows something I don't. Last night, though, she asked at the end of prayers (when we usually have the Salve Regina--apologies to all the liturgically correct: someone needs to teach me the Ave Regina Caelorum before next Lent) for Michael.

Michael? I wondered. Which Michael? Then it dawned on me: St Michael, as in St Michael the Archangel. Back in Atlanta, we concluded every Mass with the prayer to St Michael. I don't remember whose idea it was to incorporate it into our bedtime prayers, but we used to have it each evening. I think eventually it was squeezed out by the Salve Regina (which Thomas decided he really wanted, especially after experiencing compline at Minster Abbey). I asked Anna, "Do you mean St Michael?' She said 'yesssss' in the way that she does when you've worked out what it is she's trying to say.

Again, I wondered. Does she know something I don't? I will probably never quite understand the way her imagination works. She remembers so much, and reminds us of things at the most surprising moments. It's unpredictable: unlike Thomas, she's not likely to remember the big events that we keep in prayer; unlike Iain, she's unlikely to have something specific in mind. But then there are these moments, when she reveals something to us, reminds us of something or someone we've forgotten or nearly forgotten, and we know that she's been paying attention all along, storing things up in her heart. She may not be meditating on them, exactly, but she certainly keeps them.

I often wonder how that extra chromosome affects Anna so variably. In some areas, the delays in development are pronounced; in others, she grows by leaps and bounds (though also in fits and starts!), making her way forward in her own unique pattern. In her heart, though, she carries so much more than I do: she may be delayed in speech, she may be behind in arithmetic, but she's way ahead in love.