The month of March a sorrow brings. Yes, around this time every year, the daffodils have outstretched their lanky green stalks, some adorned already with the bright yellow claxons of spring soon upon us. Gangly forsythia – yellow bells, your grandmother might say – shower front yards and roadsides with their tiny golden trumpets of the new season. Even so, as the middle of this month approaches every year, it is always with a tinge of melancholy or even downright sadness. St. Patrick’s Day, you see, was my mother’s favorite holiday.
Growing up in my house there were 4 holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and St. Patrick’s Day. Oh, Halloween was tolerated – but really only as a marker for All Soul’s Day, and that meant an extra mass that we had to go to. St. Patrick’s Day, though, was eagerly anticipated every year—a major event: Boston Butt on the stove, potatoes, party at the Knights of Columbus, the whole shebang. By the 5th of the month, the shamrock-laden decorations would be out (some never went away, really, like the shillelagh that hung by the hallway door), and by the 10th of the month we children would begin to hear our mother addressing the books on the shelves in our family den – Keep away now, you! I’m not going to put up with any of your mischief this year! She was not going insane, though. She was merely anticipating Timothy.
Timothy, as you’ve likely guessed, is a leprechaun. Not just any leprechaun, mind you – but our leprechaun. He never visited anyone else. But, oh the mess he made of our house for most of that week. Books to the floor. Chairs tipped over. Toilet paper unrolled. Light bulbs unscrewed. All manner of tomfoolery we came to expect from him. And my mother took glee in every minute of it, screaming up into the kitchen cupboards as she prepared supper, with me on the stool by the counter eagerly anticipating whatever madness might ensue. Naturally, I would always just miss being able to see him, despite my mother pointing wildly to where she could clearly see him – but not quite quickly enough, for by then he had dashed off as I glanced his way. Oooooooo, Timothy!! You’ve ruined my soup!!!! And then she would look at me, mischief in her own eyes. It’s ok. I can fix it. I’ve got a few tricks that even a leprechaun doesn’t know.
And thus it would go, year after madcap year – a grown woman in a light blue housecoat chasing a leprechaun with a wooden spoon – all to the sheer delight of her children, and then to the delight of her children’s children. All until the chase eventually ended and we lay her to rest, a rest with no mischief but a blessing upon her casket, and in with the lilies some Bells of Ireland next to the freshly turned earth.
So with March every year, for me there comes a sadness. The gloom does not, however, persist. It never fails that come the 14th or the 15th or so, I begin to hear the scampering of little feet amidst the cupboards and bookshelves of my own house. And with the giggling of a little man – a giggling, yes, that I alone can here – comes the one true balm for that sad memory. Ah, yes – it is March. It is March, and there is still some mischief to be wary of, there are chairs to be righted, and books to be reshelved. Ol’ Timothy knows no rest, you see. And where there are children on St. Patrick’s Day, there are shenanigans to be had!
