Free The Black Dress by Pamela Freeman

discipline, and always loving. I fell short of that standard many times, Lord knows, but I tried.
    It’s a great joy to me that I will soon see her again—that the grief of her death, which is still with me, will be swept away. I think one of the greatest gifts God has ever given me was that her body was recovered from the shipwreck that killed her. That we could bury her and have her grave to mourn over. I am sure it was a direct answer to our prayers, because hers was the only body recovered intact from that wreck.
    ***
    The day of my First Communion it rained. It was August 15th, 1850, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into Heaven—a wonderful day to receive the Blessed Eucharist for the first time. I was very nervous. On the drive into town I worried about how to stick my tongue out so that Father Geoghegan could place the host onto it. We had practised at school, but now I was anxious. I imagined not putting my tongue out far enough so he couldn’t get the host into my mouth, or putting it out so far it would look like I was making a face. My mouth was so dry I felt as though I wouldn’t be able to move my tongue at all! Even as I worried, I knew I was being silly. Yet I couldn’t control the butterflies in my stomach.
    In later years I would remember that day. Whenever I had the honour of preparing children for their First Communion I would beg for some unconsecrated wafers from the priest and allow the children to practise receiving them on their tongues. Some parish priests wouldn’t do it—they thought it sacrilegious. But, oh, how comforted the children were! I couldn’t believe that Our Blessed Lord would object, when he loved children so.
    On that day, right from the first words of the Mass, I felt the presence of the Blessed Virgin upholding me. ‘A great sign appeared in heaven,’ the introit ran as the priest entered. ‘A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars.’ I remembered the warmth and peace I had felt that special night at the L’Estranges’ and all my worries melted away.
    I breathed deeply as I knelt at the altar rail so I wouldn’t cry with excitement and joy. Mamma was on my left hand, Granny on my right. Father Geoghegan held the host in front of each of us in turn.
    ‘Corpus Christi,’ he said.
    ‘Amen.’ The Blessed Host was placed on my tongue, and I returned to my seat and knelt. I don’t quite know what I felt—except that underneath my joy and awe, I also felt very grown up as I slipped back into the pew next to Maggie and John, who were still much too young to be considered for their First Communion.
    It shocked me that swallowing the host made me aware of how hungry I was. My stomach growled and I blushed. It seemed sacrilegious, as well as embarrassing. Then I smiled. No, I thought, that was the point. It is real bread, and it is really the Body of Christ; just as Christ was both God and man. It feeds both the body and the soul. That is the wonderful thing about it.
    ***
    A year and a day after Papa had left, when the grass was silver in the paddocks and the creek only a ribbon, Uncle Peter rode through the gate of the home paddock. It was after dinner but not yet time for tea—a strange time to come calling.
    Uncle Peter went indoors with Mamma, to Papa’s office, and came out again half an hour later, looking upset but determined. He left without saying a word to any of us.
    I went to the door of the office. Papa is dead, I thought. Or Grandfather. Or Grandma Ellen.
    ‘Mamma?’
    Mamma was crying into her shawl. Crying soundlessly, the way she always did, so that the children would not hear and be upset, too. I entered slowly as I was truly afraid. I put my arm around her shoulders.
    ‘Is it Papa?’
    ‘Of course it is!’ Mamma said, sobbing. ‘It’s always your Papa!’
    Cold swept down from the crown of my head to my fingertips. Papa dead. Papa dead. Papa ... Then I thought again. Mamma had